She walked up and down the room with the air of a princess in chains. The orange-woman bolted into the room, and pushed past her ladyship, while Mr. Montenero was sealing his note. “Give it, jewel!--It’s I’ll be the bearer; for all your powdered men below has taken fright by the dread the first messenger got, and dares not be carrying a summons for the military through the midst of _them_: but I’ll take it for yees--and which way will I go to get quickest to your general’s? and how will I know his house?--for seven of them below bothered my brains.” Mr. Montenero repeated the direction--she listened coolly, then stowing the letter in her bosom, she stood still for a moment with a look of deep deliberation--her head on one side, her forefinger on her cheek-bone, her thumb under her chin, and the knuckle of the middle-finger compressing her lips. “See, now, _they’ll_ be apt to come up the stable lane for the back o’ the house, and another party of them will be in the square, in front; so how will it be with me to get into the house to yees again, without opening the doors for _them_, in case they are wid _ye_ afore I’d get the military up?--I have it,” cried she. She rushed to the door, but turned back again to look for her pipe, which she had laid on the table. “Where’s my pipe?--Lend it me--What am I without my pipe?” “The savage!” cried Lady de Brantefield. “The fool!” said Lady Anne. The Widow Levy nodded to each of the two ladies, as she lit the pipe again, but without speaking to them, turned to us, and said, “If the boys would meet me without my pipe, they’d not know me; or smell something odd, and guess I was on some unlawful errand.” As she passed Berenice and me, who were standing together, she hastily added, “Keep a good heart, sweetest!--At the last push, you have one will shed the heart’s drop for ye!” A quick, scarcely perceptible motion of her eye towards me marked her meaning; and one involuntary look from Berenice at that moment, even in the midst of alarm, spread joy through my whole frame. In the common danger we were drawn closer together--we _thought_ together;--I was allowed to help her in the midst of the general bustle.