there, asleep in her bed?''
Perhaps I said it rather loud; but Mrs Stiles gave a shudder, as if I might just have shrieked or sprung a rattle.
''Miss Maud sleeps very poorly,'' she answered quietly. ''If she wakes in the night, then she likes her girl to go to her. She won''t call out for you, since you are a stranger to her now: we will put Margaret in a chair outside her door, and Margaret shall take her
her breakfast tomorrow, and dress her for the day. After that, you ust be ready to be called in and examined.'' She said she hoped Miss Maud would find me pleasing. I said I
did, too.
She left me, then. She went very softly, but at the door she paused, to put her hand to the keys at her chain. I saw her do it, and grew quite cold: for she looked all at once like nothing so much as the matron of a gaol. I said, before I could stop myself:
''You''re not going to lock me in?''
''Lock you in?'' she answered, with a frown. ''Why should I do
that?''
I said I didn''t know. She looked me over, drew in her chin, then shut the door and left me.
I held up my thumb. Kiss that! I thought.
Then I sat upon the bed. It was hard. I wondered if the sheets and blankets had been changed since the last maid left with the scarlatina. It was too dark to see. Mrs Stiles had taken her lamp and I had set my candle down in a draught: the flame of it plunged about and made great black shadows. I unfastened my cloak, but kept it draped about my shoulders. I ached, from the cold and the travelling; and the mince I had eaten had come too late—it sat in my stomach and hurt. It was ten o''clock. We laughed at people who went to bed before midnight, at home.