‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Blencarrow. We did not know what room it was. We couldn’t find a cool place. Indeed,’ said Kitty, recovering her courage, ‘we couldn’t find a place at all, there is such a crowd--and we thought the house was all open to-night, and that we might come downstairs.’ Mrs. Blencarrow looked at them both with the fullest straight look of those eyes, whose candour was sometimes thought to mean defiance. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that though the house is all open to-night, Walter and you should not make yourselves remarkable by stealing away together. I ought, perhaps, to tell your mother.’ ‘Oh, don’t, Mrs. Blencarrow!’ ‘It is very foolish of you both.’ ‘It was my fault, Mrs. Blencarrow. Don’t let Kitty be blamed. I remembered the old way into the garden.’ ‘I hope you did not intend to go into the garden this cold night. Run upstairs at once, you foolish children!’ She hesitated a moment, and then said, with one of her sudden blushes dyeing her countenance: ‘I have got a bad headache; the music is a little too loud. I came down here for a moment’s quiet, and to get some eau de Cologne.’ ‘Dear Mrs. Blencarrow,’ cried Kitty, too much unnerved for the moment to make any comments upon the lady’s look or manner, ‘don’t please say anything to mamma.’ Mrs. Blencarrow shook her head at them, looking from one to another, which meant gentle reproof of their foolishness, but then nodded an assent to Kitty’s prayer. But she pointed to the door at the same time, rather impatiently, as if she wanted to be rid of them; and, glad to escape so easily, they hastened away. Kitty felt the relief of having escaped so strongly that she never even asked herself why Mrs. Blencarrow should come down to the business-room in the middle of a ball, or if that was a likely place to find eau de Cologne. She thought of nothing (for the moment) but that she had got off rather well from what might have been an embarrassing situation. ‘I don’t think she’ll tell on us,’ Kitty said, with a long-drawn breath. ‘I am sure she will not,’ said Walter, as they ran up the long stone flight of stairs, and came back to the sound of music and dancing. Mrs. Bircham had just broken the monotony of a chaperon’s vigil by taking a cup of tea. She was issuing forth from the door of the tea-room upon the arm of one of those portly old gentlemen who are there for the purpose, when Kitty, breathless with haste, pushing Walter along in front of her, suddenly came within her mother’s view.