“And then, my Lady,” pursued Mistress Forest, “she told me things which it is not necessary to repeat to you. 'I knew she was telling truth; but in order to assure myself that it was so, I crept out with naked feet, and listened at Miss Aynton's door, and I heard _two_ voices”---- “Did you _recognise_ them, woman; are you sure of that?” asked my Lady sternly. “Ah, yes, madam--there is no doubt.” “Heaven help us, and forgive us!” murmured my Lady, with bowed head. “Ah, Walter, Walter, I had expected Shame, but not from deed of yours! Where is this--Miss Aynton, Mary?” “At her breakfast, my Lady; and doubtless making an exceedingly good one. _She_ is not one to let her conscience interfere with her appetite, bless you! Like the murderer under sentence in Dalwynch jail, as I read of in the paper yesterday, she 'takes her meals with regularity,' I warrant; and does not in any way physically deteriorate under the distressing circumstances of her situation.” “Send her to me, Mary--in the boudoir yonder,” said my Lady gravely. “Tell her I desire to speak with her very particularly. Breakfast? No, alas! I feel as though a morsel of food would choke me. Send her hither at once.” CHAPTER IX. THRUST AND COUNTER-THRUST. |I CANNOT, for my own part, at all agree with the depreciatory expressions used by Mistress Forest with respect to Miss Rose Aynton's personal appearance. “What Master Walter could have seen in her,” &c., it was easy enough for anybody else to see who was not of her own sex. A magnificent figure, masses of silken hair that, when unbound, would ripple almost to her dainty feet, and a countenance “bright as light, and clear as wind;” and indeed this latter was too keen and sharply cut for my taste. The sort of expression which one likes to see in one's lawyer, does not so well become the object of our heart's affections. Of course, there was nothing of steel about Miss Rose, except what might have been in her crinoline; but I never saw man or woman who gave me so much the idea of being armed _cap-à-pied_; she seemed to be equipped in a complete Milan suit of proof, impregnable, invulnerable. Like _Le Noir Fainéant_ in _Ivanhoe_, she never attacked anybody, although my Lady fancied she had recently detected signs of aggression about her; and those who knew her best avoided putting the temptation in her way. But when she entered her hostess's boudoir by invitation, upon that particular morning, she looked not only, as usual, on her guard; there was also a certain slumbrous fire in her dark eyes, which betokened onslaught--the initiative of battle. My Lady herself remarked it, not without pity. “How little is this poor lost creature aware,” thought she, “that I know all.”