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Betsy was silenced then. She arose, wiped her eyes and turned meekly away to her work, and I saw it was better to instruct and teach her right notions than to be so contemptuous as at first I was in heart, and told myself I must remember that Master Montgomery said, 'A Christian should always be gentle and "apt to teach."'

Scarcely had I settled that in my mind, when the door opened to admit Lady Caroline Wood, who approached me with great kindness, asking how I had slept and if I were recovered from my fatigue.

When I had answered that my night's sleep was good and my health as well as usual, she asked if my woman might withdraw as she wished to converse with me in private.

'Certainly,' I replied, a little wonderingly, and then I bade Betsy leave the room; and Lady Caroline, who was not much older than myself—though by wearing a large head-dress and elaborate garments she looked so—sat down on the edge of my bed, and talked long with me.

'I have heard,' she began—'Sir Hubert has told us—what a brave girl you were yesterday in withstanding alone, with your few servants, the cruelties a crowd of men and boys were practising on two old women. It was noble of you, Mistress Margaret, and I honour you for it with all my heart.'