Day had fully come, and slanting golden beams were shining through the tender green foliage, and illuminating the boles of the trees, ere she was forced by failing strength again to pause and sit on a faggot, while gathering breath and considering where she should go.  Home was her first thought.  Who could shield her but her father and sister?  How she longed for their comfort and guardianship!  But how reach them?  She had money but could do little for her.  England never less resembled those days of Brian Boromhe when the maiden with the gems, rich and rare wandered unscathed form sea to sea in Ireland.  Post chaises, though coming into use, had not dawned on the simple country girl’s imagination.  She knew there was a weekly coach from London to Bath, passing through Brentford, and that place was also a great starting-place for stage waggons, of which one went through Carminster, but her bewildered brain could not recall on what day it started, and there was an additional shock of despair when she remembered that it was Sunday morning.  The chill of the morning dew was on her limbs, she was exhausted by her fatigues of the night, a drowsy recollection of the children in the wood came over her, and she sank into a dreamy state that soon became actual sleep.  She was wakened by a strong bright sunbeam on her eyes, and found that this was what had warmed her limbs in her sleep.  A sound as of singing was also in her ears, and of calling cows to be milked.  She did not in the least know where she was, for she had wandered into parts of the wood quite strange to her, but she thought she must be a great way from home, and quite beyond recognition, so she followed the voice, and soon came out on a tiny meadow glade, where a stout girl was milking a great sheeted cow.

She knew now that she was faint with hunger and thirst, and must take food before she could go much farther, so taking out a groat, her smallest coin, she accosted the girl, and offered it for a draught of milk.  To her dismay the girl exclaimed “Lawk!  It be young Madam!  Sarvice, ma’am!”

“I have lost myself in the wood,” said Aurelia.  “I should be much obliged for a little milk.”

“Well to be sure.  Think of that!  And have ee been out all night?  Ye looks whisht!” said the girl, readily filling a wooden cup she had brought with her, for in those days good new milk was a luxury far more easily accessible than in ours.  She added a piece of barley bread, her own intended breakfast, and was full of respectful wonder, pity, and curiosity, proposing that young Madam should come and rest in mother’s cottage in the wood, and offering to guide her home as soon as the cows were milked and the pigs fed.  Aurelia had some difficulty in shaking her off, finding also that she had gone round and round in the labyrinthine paths, and was much nearer the village of Bowstead than she had intended.

Indeed, she was obliged to deceive the kindly girl by walking off in the direction she pointed out, intending to strike afterwards into another path, though where to go she had little idea, so long as it was out of reach of my Lady and her prison.