She took Winifred by the hand without speaking a word, and led her through various galleries and up a turnpike stair to her own private chamber, when, having bolted the door, she caught the child in her arms, and covered her with kisses, mingled with tears, sobs, and words of endearment. Winifred was amazed, for Mrs. Alwright had usually thought it necessary that her pupil, like all young people, should be kept down to her proper place, and made to understand that if she were treated with any consideration, it arose solely from the kindness of her elders and superiors, and not in the least from any merits of her own. Winifred had never before received from her good old friend any greater token of approbation than a pat on the head or a few carefully measured words of praise. "Oh, my dear lamb! My blessed child!" sobbed Mrs. Alwright. "To think that you should have done such a thing! That you should have saved Master Arthur, whom I have carried in my arms when he was a baby, and taught him his letters with my own hands, my dear—and risking your precious life abroad in the lonesome fields at midnight, and the dew and all, enough to give you your death! You shall have two bottles of the rose cordial to take home with you; and mind you take a glass whenever you come in, to prevent catching cold. "But Master Arthur, living in that lonesome place, along with Dame Sprat! She was always a good woman and kind to the poor, and I never did justify my Lord Carew in turning her off his land, where she and hers had lived for hundreds of years, even before my lord's ancestors came from Normandy, which they did with the Conqueror, my dear! And all because her husband was for the Protector, which, for the matter of that, so were some other folks who shall be nameless, though they turned round quickly enough when the sun shone on the other side of the hedge. Dame Sprat shall have my duffel gown and my gray cloak to keep her warm this winter, and I will knit her some woollen stockings with my own hands. "But poor dear Master Arthur, how he could be so mad I can't think, only he was always in mischief from a boy, when he used to steal my saffron cakes, and was flogged at school for helping to bar out the master. But to think of him wounded and lying out in the fields all night! Dear, dear! It is enough to break one's heart!" All this and much more did Mrs. Alwright pour out with many sobs and little regard to her stops or her grammar, till Winifred, terrified for the consequences, reminded her that it would be highly dangerous for any one to hear Master Arthur's name mentioned, or even to guess that anything unusual was the matter. "I know it, my dear, I know it! And you shall see that no one shall ever guess anything from me. I shall feel better now that I have had my cry out! But poor dear Master Arthur, that was such a lovely baby, and my poor dear lady loved him more like a son than a brother—"