"No. She's gone to Stilborough. How are you, Harriet?"
"Oh, I'm all right, thank you. What a cliff this is to climb up!--a'most takes one's breath away. Gone to Stilborough, is she? Well, that's a bother!"
"Has she done any of them han'kerchers, do you know?" returned the young woman, without replying to the direct question.
"I can't say. I know she has begun them. Would you like to come in and sit down?"
"I've no time for sitting down. My missis has sent me off here on the spur of the moment: and when she sends one out on an errand for herself one had best not linger, you know. Besides, I must get back to dress my ladies."
"Oh, must you," indifferently remarked Miss Hallet; who rarely evinced curiosity as to her neighbours' doings, or encouraged gossip upon trifles.
"They are all going off to a dinner party at Stilborough; and missis took it into her head just now that she'd use one of her new fine cambric han'kerchers," continued Harriet. "So she sent me off here to get one."
"But Mrs. Castlemaine is surely not short of fine handkerchiefs!" cried Miss Hallet.
"Short of fine han'kerchers!--why, she's got a drawer fall. It was just a freak for a new thing; that's all."
"Well, I do not know whether one is done, Harriet. Jane has been working at one; she was at it last night; but I did not notice whether she finished it."
Miss Hallet rose from her chair and went upstairs. She came back empty-handed.
"I don't see the handkerchiefs anywhere in Jane's room, Harriet. I daresay she has locked them up in her work-drawer: she has taken to lock up the drawer lately, I've noticed. If you could wait a few minutes she might be in: she'll not be long now."
"But I can't wait; they start off at five," was the girl's answer: "and the missis and Miss Ethel have both got to be dressed. So I'll say good afternoon, ma'am."
"Good afternoon," repeated Miss Hallet. "Should Jane return in time, if she happens to have finished one of the handkerchiefs, she shall bring it up."
The young woman turned away with a brisk step, but not at the speed Walter Dance had used. By-and-by, quite an hour later, Jane Hallet came in.
A slender, ladylike, nice-looking girl of nineteen; with a fair, soft, gentle face, mild blue eyes, hair light and bright, and almost child-like features. Jane's good looks, of which she was no doubt conscious, and Jane's propensity to dress too much were a source of continual vexation to Miss Hallet: so to say, a stumbling-block in her path. Jane wore a dark blue merino dress, a very pretty grey cloak, with a hood and tassels, and a straw bonnet trimmed with blue. Miss Hallet groaned.