CHAPTER IX.
The little Queen in the Arm-Chair.
Ellen had been whirled along over the roads for so many hours the rattle of the stage-coach had filled her ears for so long that now, suddenly still and quiet, she felt half- stunned. She stood with a kind of dreamy feeling, looking after the departing stage-coach. In it there were three people whose faces she knew, and she could not count a fourth within many a mile. One of those was a friend, too, as the fluttering handkerchief of poor Miss Timmins gave token still. Yet Ellen did not wish herself back in the coach, although she continued to stand and gaze after it as it rattled off at a great rate down the little street, its huge body lumbering up and down every now and then, reminding her of sundry uncomfortable jolts; till the horses making a sudden turn to the right, it disappeared round a corner. Still for a minute Ellen watched the whirling cloud of dust it had left behind; but then the feeling of strangeness and loneliness came over her, and her heart sank. She cast a look up and down the street. The afternoon was lovely; the slant beams of the setting sun came back from gilded windows, and the houses and chimney-tops of the little town were in a glow; but she saw nothing bright anywhere; in all the glory of the setting sun the little town looked strange and miserable. There was no sign of her having been expected; nobody was waiting to meet her. What was to be done next? Ellen had not the slightest idea.
Her heart growing fainter and fainter, she turned again to the inn. A tall awkward young countryman, with a cap set on one side of his head, was busying himself with sweeping off the floor of the piazza, but in a very leisurely manner; and between every two strokes of his broom he was casting long looks at Ellen, evidently wondering who she was, and what she could want there. Ellen saw it, and hoped he would ask her in words, for she could not answer his looks of curiosity but she was disappointed. As he reached the end of the piazza, and gave his broom two or three knocks against the edge of the boards to clear it of dust, he indulged himself with one good, long, finishing look at Ellen, and then she saw he was going to take himself and his broom into the house. So in despair she ran up the two or three low steps of the piazza and presented herself before him. He stopped short.
"Will you please to tell me, Sir," said poor Ellen, "if Miss
Emerson is here?"
"Miss Emerson?" said he "what Miss Emerson?"
"I don't know, Sir Miss Emerson that lives not far from
Thirlwall."
Eyeing Ellen from head to foot, the man then trailed his broom into the house. Ellen followed him.
"Mr. Forbes!" said he "Mr. Forbes! do you know anything of
Miss Emerson?"
"What Miss Emerson?" said another man, with a big red face and a big round body, showing himself in a doorway which he nearly filled.