hey came upstairs. But I never remember to have
been otherwise than wide awake, nervously awake, wearily awake. This
was the vexation. I was not a strong child, and had a very excitable
brain; and the torture that it was to hear those maids gossiping on
the other side of the dim red light of my screen I cannot well
describe, but I do most distinctly remember. I tossed till the clothes
got hot, and threw them off till I got cold, and stopped my ears, and
pulled the sheet over my face, and tried not to listen, and listened
in spite of all. They told long stories, and made many jokes that I
couldn't understand; sometimes I heard names that I knew, and fancied
I had learnt some wonderful secret. Sometimes, on the contrary, I made
noises to intimate that I was awake, when one of them would rearrange
my glaring screen, and advise me to go to sleep; and then they talked
in whispers, which was more distracting still.

"One evening--some months after my ramble round the manor--the maids
went out to tea, and I lay in peaceful silence watching the shadows
which crept noiselessly about the room as the fire blazed, and wishing
Sarah and her colleagues nothing less than a month of uninterrupted
tea-parties. I was almost asleep when Aunt Harriet came into the room.
She brought a candle, put up my screen (the red screen again!), and
went to the work-table. She had not been rustling with the work things
for many minutes when my grandmother followed her, and shut the door
with an air which seemed to promise a long stay. She also gave a
shove to my screen, and then the following conversation began:

"'I have been to Lady Sutfield's to-day, Harriet.'

"'Indeed, ma'am.' But my aunt respectfully continued her work, as I
could hear by the scraping of the scissors along the table.

"'I heard some news there. The manor is let.'

"I almost jumped in my bed, and Aunt Harriet's scissors paused.

"'Let, ma'am! To whom!'

"'To a Mrs. Moss. You must have heard me speak of her. I knew her
years ago, when we were both young women. Anastatia Eden, she was
then.'

"I could hear my aunt move to the fire, and sit down.

"'The beautiful Miss Eden? Whom did she marry at last? Was there not
some love-affair of hers that you knew about?'

"'Her love-affairs were endless. But you mean Mr. Sandford. She
treated him very ill--very ill.'

"There was a pause, while the fire crackled in the silence; and then,
to the infinite satisfaction of my curiosity