And away through dull, dark streets, now whisk round a corner into a blaze of light and flaring gas jets over butchers' stalls--now winding through omnibusses--anon dashing past the brilliantly lit up _entré_ to some concert room--again into darkness undiminished save by the street lamps and hall lights--then a rumble over the side stones.
"Here we are," from Winter--as the door flew open before their charioteer could knock.
Mrs. Winter, standing under the lamp, in a cap that looked as if it had been made at A----, herself neat, as though she never had encountered a Spanish flea.
"Dearest Kate! I thought you would never come!"
A sobbing, joyous embrace, and she was swept up-stairs, where even the London lodging looked homelike under Mrs. Winter's benign influence. Then came the plentiful tea--hot cakes, and broiled ham and eggs, with mulled port for the lady, and brandy-and-water for the gentleman--and the delicious confusion of cross questions, and most irrelevant answers--and the mingling of tears and smiles!
"Now you must go to bed," said Winter; "see, it is long past one--and that poor child has been in constant agitation all day--she has not a vestige of color in her cheeks."
"Indeed, my dear, you look ill--yes--you must go to bed," observed his wife, with her usual kindly precision, which nothing but the actual excitement of the moment of meeting could break through, and which Kate recognized joyfully as an old friend.
"The sober certainty of waking bliss," may well be weighed against the agony of first waking after grief. And Kate lay for some time, the next morning, comparing this Sunday with the last; then her thoughts flew to nurse, and she sprang up to communicate to her the joyful news of her emancipation.
Winter and his wife soon asked for a fuller and more connected account than she had yet given them of her life since they had last met; and though it cost her many tears, the recital did her good. How clearly through it all could she trace the guiding of Almighty love, ever hovering near to interpose its aid when the bowed spirit failed beneath its burden. No, they were not bitter tears she shed that morning. And, sometimes, her eyes would sparkle brightly through them, as she recounted nurse's undeviating self-devotion and unfailing truth. She thought little of herself during the narration, nor dreamt it was the quiet, undaunted heroism her words involuntarily displayed--the heroism of exhaustless love, careless of its own wealth, that drew such quick sobs from Mrs. Winter, and made her good little husband wink his eyes, and blow his nose, so furtively, and so often.