She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to Adrian to follow
her.

"Adrian," she said, turning upon him in the passage, "you mentioned a
house where this horrible cake...where he was this morning. I desire you
to take me to that woman immediately."

The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude. He had hoped he
should be in time for the last act of the opera that night, after
enjoying the comedy of real life.

"My dear aunt"...he was beginning to insinuate.

"Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat," said Mrs. Doria.

There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his assent to the
Pilgrim's dictum, that Women are practical creatures, and now reflected
on his own account, that relationship to a young fool may be a vexation
and a nuisance. However, Mrs. Doria compensated him.

What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature did not plainly
know; but her energy positively demanded to be used in some way or other,
and her instinct directed her to the offender on whom she could use it in
wrath. She wanted somebody to be angry with, somebody to abuse. She dared
not abuse her brother to his face: him she would have to console. Adrian
was a fellow-hypocrite to the System, and would, she was aware, bring her
into painfully delicate, albeit highly philosophic, ground by a
discussion of the case. So she drove to Bessy Berry simply to inquire
whither her nephew had flown.

When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is matched with a woman
of energy, she does not show much fight, and she meets no mercy. Bessy
Berry's creditor came to her in female form that night. She then beheld
it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to her as a male, a
disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing male attributes, and the
peculiar male characteristic of being moved, and ultimately silenced, by
tears. As female, her creditor was terrible indeed. Still, had it not
been a late hour, Bessy Berry would have died rather than speak openly
that her babes had sped to make their nest in the Isle of Wight. They had
a long start, they were out of the reach of pursuers, they were safe, and
she told what she had to tell. She told more than was wise of her to
tell. She made mention of her early service in the family, and of her
little pension. Alas! her little pension! Her creditor had come expecting
no payment--come; as creditors are wont in such moods, just to take it
out of her--to employ the famil