bringing in the tea when she heard some one moving; for her ladyship, as soon as she saw the state of the case, came and knelt down on the rug by me, and begged my pardon so prettily for having followed Nancy upstairs without waiting for permission; and was so taken by my old lace, and wanted to know how I washed it, and where you were, and when you’d be back, and when the happy couple would be back:  till sister wakened—­she’s always a little bit put out, you know, when she first wakens from her afternoon nap,—­ and, without turning her head to see who it was, she said, quite sharp,—­

“Buzz, buzz, buzz!  When will you learn that whispering is more fidgeting than talking out loud?  I’ve not been able to sleep at all for the chatter you and Nancy have been keeping up all this time.  You know that was a little fancy of sister’s, for she’d been snoring away as naturally as could be.”

So I went to her, and leant over her, and said, in a low voice,—­

‘Sister, it’s her ladyship and me that has been conversing.’

’"Ladyship here, ladyship there! have you lost your wits, Phoebe, that you talk such nonsense—­and in your skull-cap, too!"’

By this time she was sitting up, and, looking round her, she saw Lady Harriet, in her velvets and silks, sitting on our rug, smiling, her bonnet off, and her pretty hair all bright with the blaze of the fire.  My word!  Sister was up on her feet directly; and she dropped her curtsey, and made her excuses for sleeping, as fast as might be, while I went off to put on my best cap, for sister might well say I was out of my wits to go on chatting to an earl’s daughter in an old black silk skull-cap.  Black silk, too! when, if I’d only known she was coming, I might have put on my new brown silk one, lying idle in my top drawer.  And when I came back, sister was ordering tea for her ladyship,—­our tea, I mean.  So I took my turn at talk, and sister slipped out to put on her Sunday silk.  But I don’t think we were quite so much at our ease with her ladyship as when I sate pulling out my lace in my skull-cap.  And she was quite struck with our tea, and asked where we got it, for she had never tasted any like it before; and I told her we gave only 3s. 4d. a pound for it, at Johnson’s—­(sister says I ought to have told her the price of our company-tea, which is 5s. a pound, only that was not what we were drinking; for, as ill-luck would have it, we’d none of it in the house)—­and she said she would send us some of hers, all the way from Russia or Prussia, or some out-of-the-way place, and we were to compare and see which we liked best; and if we liked hers best, she could get it for us at 3s. a pound.  And she left her love for you; and, though she was going away, you were not to forget her.  Sister thought such a message would set you up too much, and told me she would not be chargeable for the giving it you.  “But,” I said, “a message is a message, and it’s on Molly’s own shoulders if she’s set up by it.  Let us show her an example of humility, sister, though we have been sitting cheek-by-jowl in such company.”  So sister humphed, and said she’d a headache, and went to bed.  And now you may tell me your news, my dear.’