“Afraid! Not at all. What possible danger is there? Besides, I want to see what’s going on. Come, let’s go.”
Emily rose and followed Muriel, who left the room for her bonnet.
“Come, Charles,” said Mrs. Eastman, moving to the door; “come down-stairs, and I’ll give you something to eat. Little men like you are always ready for pie.”
Tugmutton, with the prospect of pie in his delighted vision, flashed into a huge grin, which displayed all his ivories, and lit his blobber-grey face; and checking the impulse which prompted him to execute a shuffling breakdown on the spot, he dodged out at the door after Mrs. Eastman.
CHAPTER VI.
AN EPISODE OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.
In a few minutes the two young ladies, cloaked and bonneted, came out into the sunlit street, where stood the carriage, which Patrick, the inside man, had brought up from Niles’s stables. Emily, characteristically indifferent to the driver, swept in and took her seat. Muriel, on the contrary, who was on friendly terms with everybody, courteously bent her head to him as she passed. The driver took off his hat to her, and stood waiting for orders.
“Wait a minute, please,” said Muriel.
Presently, Patrick, a grey-haired, decorous old Irishman, came out with a basket, covered with a white cloth, which he deposited on the seat of the carriage.