who always had been used to every luxury! Nothing
but cheer had they brought to the sickroom, and not a sign of their
poverty and hardship, for they knew that their broths and biscuit and
jellies must have choked me. No. It remained for this contemptible
cur of a husband and father to open my eyes.

He had risen when I had brought myself to look at him. And as I hope for
heaven he took my emotion for pity of himself.

"I have worried you enough for one day with my troubles, my lad," said
he. "But they are very hard to bear, and once in a while it does me good
to speak of them."

I did not trust myself to reply.

It was Aunt Lucy who spent the morning with me, and Mrs. Manners brought
my dinner. I observed a questioning glance as she entered, which I took
for an attempt to read whether Mr. Marmaduke had spoke more than he
ought. But I would have bitten off my tongue rather than tell her of my
discoveries, though perhaps my voice may have betrayed an added concern.
She stayed to talk on the progress of the war, relating the gallant
storming of Stony Point by Mad Anthony in July, and the latest Tory
insurrection on our own Eastern Shore. She passed from these matters to
a discussion of General Washington's new policy of the defensive, for
Mrs. Manners had always been at heart a patriot. And whilst I lay
listening with a deep interest, in comes my lady herself. So was it
ever, when you least expected her, even as Mammy had said. She curtseyed
very prettily, with her chin tilted back and her cheeks red, and asked me
how I did.

"And where have you been these days gone, Miss Will-o'the-Wisp, since the
doctor has given me back my tongue?" I cried.

"I like you better when you are asleep," says she. "For then you are
sometimes witty, though I doubt not the wit is other people's."

So I saw that she had tricked me, and taken her watch at night. For I
slept like a trooper after a day's forage. As to what I might have said
in my dreams--that thought made me red as an apple.

"Dorothy, Dorothy," says her mother, smiling, "you would provoke a
saint."

"Which would be better fun than teasing a sinner," replies the minx, with
a little face at me. "Mr. Carvel, a gentleman craves the honour of an
audience from your Excellency."

"A gentleman!"

"Even so. He presents a warrant from your Excellency's physician."

With that she disappeared, Mrs. Manners going after her. And who should
come bursting in at the door but my Lord