Robert allowed himself to be appeased, and took Miss Ellen’s hand affectionately in his, while he besought her to go on with her touching narrative. “There isn’t much more to tell,” said Ellen, leaving her hand rather longer than was necessary in the footman’s clasp. “I found her what seemed to me stone-dead, her hands cold as ice, her face white as the marble over which the water dripped, her hair wet with the spray of the fountain. Old Storms began to cry, and the under-gardener—” “Well, Miss Ellen, what of him?” demanded the footman, tossing the clinging hand away indignantly. “What of that cretur? Did he have the cheek to offer to help, and lift the madam up, and, perhaps, touch that hand in doing of it—that hand which mine—— Speak, Ellen, what _did_ that wretched being presume to do?” “Why, Robert, he only lifted her up from the cold marble of the floor, and laid her on a garden-sofa.” “He did? That is enough. I understand the rest. Perfidious woman! You helped him! Your hands met—your eyes——” “No, Robert, no! I hardly looked at him. But what could we do? Old Storms hasn’t the strength of a baby, and I was so frightened!” “But you talked with him?” “Only to get all the particulars which the crabbed old man wouldn’t talk about. In fact, he tried to make me believe that nothing out of the common had happened; that no strange man had been there; and he was awful huffy with the under-gardener for coming in after me. In fact, if I had depended on old Storms, not a soul in this house would have known anything about it.” “We don’t know much as it is,” muttered the cook, kneading handsful of butter into her pie-crust, while Ellen made the most of her story. “Well, you may know this, if you’ll take the trouble to understand,” answered Ellen, with a toss of her head. “It was full ten minutes before the madam came out of her fainting fit, and when she did, it was to sit up like a ghost and look around with frightened eyes, as if she dreaded something, and there old Storms stood half crying. When she saw me the color came back to her face with a rush, and in her grand way, she asked what I was doing there. When I attempted to answer, she pointed to the door and said, “Go, leave me. There was nothing the matter, that you should be called. The heavy perfume of the flowers made me faint; but Storms was enough.” “Then she arose with her haughtiest air and swept by me like a queen.” “Rather hard on you, Ellen. I should say it all meant that you wasn’t wanted,” said the cook, dusting the flour from her hands with a sort of glee, for she had made that a pretence for clapping them. “I wasn’t addressing my conversation to you,” replied Ellen, with lofty disdain, and was about to say to Mr. Robert “that when I went into the house madam passed me without a word, and shut herself up in her own room where she has been these two hours without ringing her bell once. Now I say that looks mysterious.” “Sensationing, at least,” answered the footman.