Lady Betty clapped her hands like a child at play. "You will? Oh, brave!" she cried. "Then there's not a minute to be lost, miss. Take my laced jacket and hat. But stay--you must put on your sacque and hoop. Where are they? Let me help you. And won't you want to take some--la, you'll have nothing but what you stand up in!"
Sophia winced, but pursued her preparations as if she had not heard. In feverish haste she dragged out what she wanted, and in five minutes stood in the middle of the room, arrayed in Lady Betty's jacket and hat, which, notwithstanding the difference in height, gave her such a passing resemblance to the younger girl as might deceive a person in a half light.
"You'll do!" Lady Betty cried; all to her was sport. "And you'll just take my chair: it's a hack, but they know me. Mutter 'home,' and stop 'em where you like--and take another! D'you see?"
The two girls--their united ages barely made up thirty-four--flung themselves into one another's arms. Held thus, the younger felt the wild beating of Sophia's heart, and put her from her and looked at her with a sudden qualm of doubt and fear and perception.
"Oh," she cried, "if he is not good to you! If he--don't! don't!" she continued, trembling herself in every limb. "Let me take off your things. Let me! Don't go!"
But Sophia's mind was now made up. "No," she said firmly; and then, looking into the other's eyes, "Only speak of me kindly, child, if--if they say things."
And before Lady Betty, left standing in the middle of the darkening room--where the reflection of the oil lamps in the street below was beginning to dance and flicker on the ceiling--had found words to answer, Sophia was half-way down the stairs. The staircase was darker than the room, and detection, as Lady Betty had foreseen, was almost impossible. Mrs. Martha, waiting spitefully outside her mistress's door on the first floor landing, saw as she thought, "that little baggage of a ladyship" go down; and she followed her muttering, but with no intention of intercepting her. John in the hall, too, saw her coming, and threw wide the door, then flew to open the waiting chair. "Home, my lady?" he asked obsequiously, and passed the word; finally, when the chair moved off, he looked up and down, and came in slowly, whistling. Another second, and the door of the house in Arlington Street slammed on Sophia.
"And a good riddance!" muttered Mrs. Martha, looking over the balusters. "I never could abear her!"