should like a cup of tea. (Am I responsible for
any of these vulgar fluctuations, which begin
with unhappiness and end with tea?) Just as
she was warming the pot (I give the words on
the authority of Louis, who says he knows what
they mean, and wishes to explain, but I snub
him on principle)—just as she was warming the
pot, the door opened, and she was struck of a
heap (her own words again, and perfectly
unintelligible, this time, to Louis, as well as to
myself) by the appearance, in the inn parlour, of
her ladyship, the Countess. I give my niece's
maid's description of my sister's title with a
sense of the highest relish. My poor dear sister
is a tiresome woman who married a foreigner.
To resume: the door opened; her ladyship, the
Countess, appeared in the parlour; and the
Young Person was struck of a heap. Most
remarkable!

I must really rest a little before I can get on
any farther. When I have reclined for a few
minutes, with my eyes closed, and when Louis
has refreshed my poor aching temples with a
little eau-de-Cologne, I may be able to proceed.

Her ladyship, the Countess—

No. I am able to proceed, but not to sit up.
I will recline, and dictate. Louis has a horrid
accent; but he knows the language, and can
write. How very convenient!

Her ladyship, the Countess, explained her
unexpected appearance at the inn by telling Fanny
that she had come to bring one or two little
messages which Miss Halcombe, in her hurry,
had forgotten. The Young Person thereupon
waited anxiously to hear what the messages
were; but the Countess seemed disinclined to
mention them (so like my sister's tiresome
way!), until Fanny had had her tea. Her ladyship
was surprisingly kind and thoughtful about
it (extremely unlike my sister), and said, "I am
sure, my poor girl, you must want your tea. We
can let the messages wait till afterwards. Come,
come, if nothing else will put you at your ease,
I'll make the tea, and have a cup with you." I
think those were the words, as reported excitably,
in my presence, by the Young Person. At any
rate, the Countess insisted on making the tea,
and carried her ridiculous ostentation of humility
so far as to take one cup herself, and to insist
on the girl's taking the other. The girl drank
the tea; and, according to her own account,
solemnised the extraordinary occasion, five
minutes afterwards, by fainting dead away, for
the first time in her life. Here, again, I use her
own words. Louis thinks they were accompanied
by an increased secretion of tears. I
can't say, myself. The effort of listening being
quite as much as I could manage, my eyes were
closed.

Where did I leave off? Ah, yes—she fainted,
after drinking a cup of tea with the Countess:
a proceeding which might have interested me,
if I had been her medical man; but, being
nothing of the sort, I felt bored by hearing of
it, nothing more. When she came to herself,
in half an hour's time, she was on the sofa, and
nobody was with her but the landlady. The
Countess, finding it too late to remain any longer
at the inn, had gone away as soon as the girl
showed signs of recovering; and the landlady
had been good enough to help her up-stairs to
bed. Left by herself, she had felt in her bosom
(I regret the necessity of referring to this part
of the subject a second time), and had found
the two letters there, quite safe, but very much
crumpled. She had been giddy in the night;
but had got up well enough to travel in the
morning. She had put the letter addressed
to that obtrusive stranger, the gentleman in
London, into the post; and had now delivered
the other letter into my hands, as she was told.
This was the plain truth; and, though she could
not blame herself for any intentional neglect,
she was sadly troubled in her mind, and sadly
in want of a word of advice. At this point,
Louis thinks the secretions appeared again.
Perhaps they did; but it is of infinitely greater
importance to mention that, at this point also,
I lost my patience, opened my eyes, and interfered.

"What is the purport of all this?" I
inquired.

My niece's irrelevant maid stared, and stood
speechless.

"Endeavour to explain," I said to my servant.
"Translate me, Louis."

Louis endeavoured, and translated. In other
words, he descended immediately into a bottomless
pit of confusion; and the Young Person
followed him down. I really don't know when
I have been so amused. I left them at the
bottom of the pit, as long as they diverted me.
When they ceased to divert me, I exerted my
intelligence, and pulled them up again.

It is unnecessary to say that my interference
enabled me, in due course of time, to ascertain
the purport of the Young Person's remarks.
I discovered that she was uneasy in her mind,
because the train of events that she had just
described to me, had prevented her from receiving
those supplementary messages which Miss
Halcombe had entrusted to the Countess to deliver.
She was afraid the messages might have been of
great importance to her mistress's interests.
Her dread of Sir Percival had deterred her from
going to Blackwater Park late at night to
inquire about them; and Miss Halcombe's own
directions to her, on no account to miss the
train in the morning, had prevented her from
waiting at the inn the next day. She was most
anxious that the misfortune of her fainting-fit
should not lead to the second misfortune of
making her mistress think her neglectful, and
she would humbly beg to ask me whether I
would advise her to write her explanations and
excuses to Miss Halcombe, requesting to
receive the messages by letter, if it was not
too late. I make no apologies for this
extremely prosy paragraph. I have been ordered
to write it. There are people, unaccountable
as it may appear, who actually take more
interest in what my niece's maid said to me on