CHAPTER IV.
THE FEAST IN THE GARRET.
"We fell to work and feasted like the gods,
Like laborers, or like eager workhouse folk
At Yule-tide dinner; or, to say the whole
At once, like tired, hungry, healthy youth."
Jean Ingelow.
Queenie, absorbed in the themes she was correcting, was not aware of Cathy's absence from the room.
As she toiled on, correcting faulty grammar and replacing obnoxious terms, she was consumed with terrible anxiety. Emmie's thin white face came between her and the page. "What can I do to save her from this life?" was her one inward ejaculation.
She rose quite exhausted with the mental strain when her work was finished. The great stone hall with its one lamp looked dreary enough as she traversed it; all manner of weird shadows lurked in the corners of the landing-place. A rising wind moaned in the ivy outside, and shook the bare branches of the trees till they creaked under it; the moon slid wildly through the black clouds. Queenie thought of Emmie with a little shiver of apprehension, and hurried on.
"Here I am. Are you tired of waiting for me?" she exclaimed, in a tone of enforced cheerfulness, almost before she opened the door; and then she started back, and a little cry of surprise and pleasure broke from her lips at the changed aspect of the garret.
The scene was certainly unique.
The rickety table, covered with an old red shawl of Queenie's, was drawn close to the bed; two candles, one green and the other yellow, burnt cheerily in two broken medicine bottles; a few late-blooming roses in a soap-dish gave an air of elegance to the whole. A bottle of ginger wine, and various delicacies in the shape of meat pies, tarts, and large sticky Bath buns, were tastefully arranged at intervals, flanked by a pocket corkscrew, a pen-knife, tumbler, and small tin plate.
Emmie, propped up with pillows and huddled up in a warm plaid belonging to Cathy, regarded this magnificent feast with bright-eyed astonishment; she clapped her hands at the sight of her sister.