ing like--this is
something like--no like rinning into the house and out of the house, and
geeing orders, like mistress and mair, and than a puir shilling again
Saturday at e'en."

So saying, she sat down to her wheel, and seized, while she spun, her
jet-black cutty pipe, from which she soon sent such clouds of vile
mundungus vapour as must have cleared the premises of Lady Penelope, had
she not been strong in purpose to share the expected confession of the
invalid. As for Miss Digges, she coughed, sneezed, retched, and finally
ran out of the cottage, declaring she could not live in such a smoke, if
it were to hear twenty sick women's last speeches; and that, besides,
she was sure to know all about it from Lady Penelope, if it was ever so
little worth telling over again.

Lord Etherington was now standing beside the miserable flock-bed, in
which lay the poor patient, distracted, in what seemed to be her dying
moments, with the peevish clamour of the elder infant, to which she
could only reply by low moans, turning her looks as well as she could
from its ceaseless whine to the other side of her wretched couch, where
lay the unlucky creature to which she had last given birth; its
shivering limbs imperfectly covered with a blanket, its little features
already swollen and bloated, and its eyes scarce open, apparently
insensible to the evils of a state from which it seemed about to be
speedily released.

"You are very ill, poor woman," said Lord Etherington; "I am told you
desire a magistrate."

"It was Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, whom I desired to see--John Mowbray
of St. Ronan's--the lady promised to bring him here."

"I am not Mowbray of St. Ronan's," said Lord Etherington; "but I am a
justice of peace, and a member of the legislature--I am, moreover, Mr.
Mowbray's particular friend, if I can be of use to you in any of these
capacities."

The poor woman remained long silent, and when she spoke it was
doubtfully.

"Is my Lady Penelope Penfeather there?" she said, straining her darkened
eyes.

"Her ladyship is present, and within hearing," said Lord Etherington.

"My case is the worse," answered the dying woman, for so she seemed, "if
I must communicate such a secret as mine to a man of whom I know
nothing, and a woman of whom I only know that she wants discretion."

"I--I want discretion!" said Lady Penelope; but at a signal from Lord
Etherington she seemed to restrain herself; nor did the sick woman,
whose p