delicious
plateau--that debatable land upon which the last waking reverie and the
first dream of slumber mingle together in airy dance and shifting
colours--when, on a sudden, she was recalled to a consciousness of her
grave bed-posts, and damask curtains, by the voice of her aunt.

Sitting up, she gazed on the redoubted Aunt Becky through the lace of
her _bonnet de nuit_, for some seconds, in a mystified and incredulous
way.

Mistress Rebecca Chattesworth, on the other hand, had drawn the
curtains, and stood, candle in hand, arrayed in her night-dress, like a
ghost, only she had on a pink and green quilted dressing-gown loosely
over it.

She was tall and erect, of course; but she looked softened and strange;
and when she spoke, it was in quite a gentle, humble sort of way, which
was perfectly strange to her niece.

'Don't be frightened, sweetheart,' said she, and she leaned over and
with her arm round her neck, kissed her. 'I came to say a word, and just
to ask you a question. I wish, indeed I do--Heaven knows, to do my duty;
and, my dear child, will you tell me the whole truth--will you tell me
truly?--You will, when I ask it as a kindness.'

There was a little pause, and Gertrude looked with a pale gaze upon her
aunt.

'Are you,' said Aunt Becky--'do you, Gertrude--do you like Lieutenant
Puddock?'

'Lieutenant Puddock!' repeated the girl, with the look and gesture of a
person in whose ear something strange has buzzed.

'Because, if you really are in love with him, Gertie; and that he likes
you; and that, in short--' Aunt Becky was speaking very rapidly, but
stopped suddenly.

'In love with Lieutenant Puddock!' was all that Miss Gertrude said.

'Now, do tell me, Gertrude, if it be so--tell _me_, dear love. I know
'tis a hard thing to say,' and Aunt Becky considerately began to fiddle
with the ribbon at the back of her niece's nightcap, so that she need
not look in her face; 'but, Gertie, tell me truly, do you like him;
and--and--why, if it be so, I will mention Mr. Dangerfield's suit no
more. There now--there's all I want to say.'

'Lieutenant Puddock!' repeated young Madam in the nightcap; and by this
time the film of slumber was gone; and the suspicion struck her somehow
in altogether so comical a way that she could not help laughing in her
aunt's sad, earnest face.

'Fat, funny little Lieutenant Puddock!--was ever so diverting a
disgrace? Oh! dear aunt, what have I done to deserve so prodigious a