Poor as she notoriously was, the oft-repeated rumors of Prue's engagement to one or another of her wealthy admirers enabled her to run into debt time and again for such necessaries of existence as fashionable dresses and costly jewels, for which she certainly never expected to pay out of her own pocket. Nay, even money-lenders, beguiled by her bright eyes and her unquestionably promising matrimonial prospects, had furnished the sinews of war (for which her future husband would have to pay right royally), and this despite the fact that the Lady Prudence Brooke, widowed at sixteen, was still a widow at two-and-twenty.
Lady Drumloch's granddaughters were not expected at her town-house, and when the hired cabriolet in which they arrived drew up at her door, the ancient butler was divided between joy at the sight of the two bright young faces, and trepidation as to the welcome they might expect from the higher powers. Mrs. Lowton, my lady's waiting-woman, was troubled by no such complex emotions. She made little attempt to conceal her own dissatisfaction or to disguise the fact that the old countess was in no humor for gay company.
"My lady has had an awful attack of gout," she averred, "and the doctors have ordered the strictest quiet. The least agitation might be fatal."
"We will be as quiet as mice, Lowton," said Lady Prudence, ostentatiously tiptoeing across the narrow hall and up the steep stairs. "James, pay the coachman and let me know how much I owe you."
The butler obeyed, though with no great alacrity. "Her ladyship ain't long getting back to her old tricks," he muttered with rather a wry smile, as he hunted through his pockets for the coach-hire. "I gave the man two shillings—and sixpence for himself," he said, coming back promptly. "I suppose your ladyship has not forgotten that before you went to Yorkshire—"
"Oh! never mind that, James," she interrupted hastily. "Let bygones be bygones, and when I come into my fortune you will see whether I forget anything. Come, Peggie, let us get to bed. I am fainting for want of sleep."
"I am fainting, too," retorted Miss Moffat, "but more with hunger than sleep. Lowton, for the love of Heaven, order some breakfast, and that speedily."
"I'll see what I can do, Miss Margaret," said Lowton, without enthusiasm, "but her ladyship keeps us closer than ever, and I doubt if there's anything for breakfast but milk and bread."
The cousins crept softly up to the little room on the top floor, where their dismantled beds and the bare floors gave so much evidence of disuse and so little promise of hospitality that the most courageous hearts might have sunk a little.
"We were better off at Bleakmoor, even with the bailiffs in attendance," said Prue piteously.