Poor thing! She was over-wrought, and nature would have her way. She was really ill next day with a headache and sore throat, and the illness was not without its advantages, for Lady Leighton never came near us, and we were left in peace for at least a few days. I will not pretend to give an account of the slights and indignities I was made to undergo whenever I left the shelter of Amabel's room. The new servants were not slow to perceive that I was no favorite with their mistress, and treated me accordingly. I no longer dined with Amabel, but in the housekeeper's room, and Mrs. Wilson took care that I did not lack sauce to my meat. She was herself in a very bad humor. She was horribly jealous of her lady's new French waiting-woman, and provoked at the amount of care and work which fell to her share. A mischievous man-servant, one of the old stock who had staid behind, made sure that she should hear of all the ghost and goblin tales about the place, and did not fail to add mysterious hints of hordes of gypsies and border robbers which haunted the wild recesses of the hills. The brown man of the moors and the old Picts (still feared and abhorred in Northumberland,) were not wanting, till poor Wilson was actually afraid to go to bed. An odd accident one day turned this woman from an enemy into my friend. There was a young Highland bull of a very fine breed (a present from Thornyhaugh to Mrs. Deborah, who loved cattle,) which was pastured in a field near the house. This bull had been a pet of mine, and I often fed him with bread and salt, so that he would come readily at my whistle, and as he had never shown any ill-temper, I was not at all afraid of him. One day I had set out to see some of the poor women in the almshouses, and had not gone far when I saw Mrs. Wilson in a position of some danger. Some one had left open the gate of Chieftain's enclosure, and he had come out to taste the grass by the lane side. He was feeding peaceably enough, when Mrs. Wilson came by with a red silk apron on, and Chieftain instantly conceiving in his bovine mind that the same red apron was intended as an insult to himself, at once began to stamp, tear up the ground and lash himself into a rage. Wilson had just sense enough not to turn and run, but not enough to take off the obnoxious apron. She was backing toward a stone wall, and Chieftain was following her, more and more enraged every moment.