"You are a mental chemist, Constance: but here comes the maid called Barbara, with hoods and cardinals, signifying that the dew is falling, though we feel it not."
"I sought you, mistress," said Barbara, "all over the house, for Sir Willmott Burrell advised me that he wished to speak with you in the oak parlour, if it so please you, or in the library; my honoured master was present."
"Did my father too want me?"
"No, madam; he said he would go to his chamber, for a little, before the evening meal."
The young ladies, followed by Barbara, entered the house, and, as Frances Cromwell pressed Constantia's hand, she felt it clammy and chilling cold: she would have spoken, but, while arranging the necessary words, her friend, with a more than usually dignified deportment, entered the parlour. It was a dark, dim room, the frettings and ornaments of black carved oak.
"Tell Sir Willmott Burrell I await him here," she said to Barbara, while passing the threshold.
Frances Cromwell, over whose mind a feeling of terror was imperceptibly stealing, would have remained, but Constance intimated that she would receive Burrell alone.
CHAPTER XIII.
——I am sworn brother now
To grim Necessity; and he and I
Will keep a league till death.