There was another reason for Anna being nervous over her work, besides listening in vain for customers. The affair of the tea had never come to an end. From the quantity of business before the court, and from other circumstances, it had been postponed; and one or two of Anna’s friends had tried to persuade her that she would hear no more of it. But she was too anxious to be easily comforted. She knew Studley too well to believe that he would stop short of injuring the family to the utmost. She found that she was legally guilty; and she suffered little less than if she had been morally guilty. Day and night was the idea of approaching exposure and punishment before her. There were but few people,—not half-a-dozen of her nearest neighbours,—who would believe in her utter ignorance of the excise laws; and her character for fair dealing would be gone. If Aaron had not run away, she almost thought she should. She could now fancy how people might be driven to destroy themselves. The old feeling which had embittered her childish disgraces now came back upon her,—that if she could but get out of this one scrape, she would go somewhere where she could never get into another. If she forgot her apprehensions for an hour in her concern for her parents’ troubles, they came back to plunge her into redoubled misery. It may be doubted whether many criminals suffer so much in the prospect of their trial and punishment as did this innocent girl from the consequences of a factitious transgression. They who prepare the apparatus for such transgression can little know what demoralization and misery they are causing, or they would throw up their task. She knew Studley best. She was the least surprised, though infinitely the most dismayed, when the crisis came at last. She heard her mother’s heavy tread in the shed below, and could trace her progress to the foot of the stairs by the jingling among the wares. “Anna! Anna, child!” exclaimed the old lady, out of breath with her exertions. “Here is Mr. Studley! you must come down; he won’t leave his business with me.” After an interval, “Anna, child, do you hear?” “Yes, mother.” “Then, are you coming?” “Yes, mother.” “Well, make haste.” Studley was there in his capacity of messenger. His errand was not, to his taste, so good as if he had come with a levy warrant, or a body warrant;—a summons was but a poor infliction; but, such as it was, he enjoyed it. “When must I go, sir?” “To-morrow, at eleven. You must be at the court by eleven precisely, remember.” “And may I take any body with me, sir?” “Do you mean as counsel, or merely as a support to your spirits?” “I have nothing to defend, sir. I have no other excuse than my not knowing the law; and I can as well say that myself as get anybody to say it for me. I only mean that I should not like to be quite alone, if the law allows me to take any friend with me.”