Oh, I wish Flora or Annas were here! I do not know how to deal with my poor Hatty. Thoughts which would comfort me seem to fall powerless with her; and I have nobody to counsel me. I suppose my Aunt Kezia would say I must set the Lord before me; but I do not see how to do it in this case. I am sure I have prayed enough. What I want is an angel to whisper to me what to do again; and my angel has gone back into Heaven, I suppose, for I feel completely puzzled now. At any rate, I do hope things have done happening. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. Our forefathers thought colds a much more serious affair than we do. They probably knew much less about them. CHAPTER TWELVE. BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. _Host._ "Trust me, I think 'tis almost day." _Julia._ "Not so; but it hath been the longest night That e'er I watched, and the most heaviest." SHAKESPEARE. I am writing four days later than my last sentence, and I wonder whether things have finished beginning to happen. Grandmamma's Tuesday was the day after I writ. The Newtons were there,--at least Mrs Newton and Miss Theresa,--and ever so many people whom I knew and cared nothing about. My Lady Parmenter came early, but did not stay long; and very late, long after every one else, Ephraim Hebblethwaite. Mr Raymond I did not see, and have not done so for several times. I was not much inclined to talk, and I got into a corner with some pictures which I had seen twenty times, and turned them over just as an excuse for keeping quiet. All at once I heard Ephraim's voice at my side: "Cary, I want to speak to you. Go on looking at those pictures: other ears are best away. How is Hatty?" "She is better," I said; "but she is not the old Hatty." "I don't think the old Hatty will come back," he said. "Perhaps the new one may be better. Are the Miss Bracewells gone home?" "They start to-morrow," said I. "Cary, I am going to ask you something. Don't show any surprise. Are you a brave girl?" "I hardly know," said I, resisting the temptation to look up and see what he meant. "Why?" "Because a woman is wanted for a piece of work, and we think you would answer." "What piece of work?--and who are `we'?" I asked, turning over some views of Rome with very little notion what they were. "`We' are Colonel Keith, Raymond, and myself." "And what `piece of work'?" I asked again. "To attempt the rescue of Angus." "How?--what am I to do?" "Did you ever try to personate anybody?" "Well, we used to act little pieces sometimes at Carlisle, I and the Grandison girls and Lucretia Carnwath. There has never been anything of the sort here." "Did they think you did it well?" "Lucretia Carnwath and Diana Grandison were thought the best performers; but once they said I made a capital housemaid." "Were you ever a laundress?" "No, but I dare say I could have managed it." "Are you willing to try?"