"There could be no doubt, notwithstanding the slight inaccuracy, that
our young friend had turned up; and so she had. Would to heaven we
had lost her!
"She told my poor child a story to account for her having failed to
recover us for so long. Very late, she said, she had got to the
housekeeper's bedroom in despair of finding us, and had then fallen
into a deep sleep which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed to recruit
her strength after the fatigues of the ball.
"That day Millarca came home with us. I was only too happy, after all,
to have secured so charming a companion for my dear girl."