"Then the Lady Frances would take one of the other sex as a shield?"
"Yes, Constance; they would do as well to be shot at as ourselves, you
know."
"Ah, Frances, you are no true woman, unless, if there were real danger,
you would thrust yourself between it and the life a thousand times more
precious than your own. Suppose, for instance, that sudden danger
menaced the life of----"
"Hush, dear Constantia; the idea of such an event is enough. It is
easier to sacrifice life when the sacrifice is demanded by affection,
than to resign one selfish indulgence."
"Ah! because, in the first case, we gratify ourselves; in the second,
others."
"You are a mental chemist, Constance: but here comes the maid called
Barbara, with hoods and cardinals, signifying that the dew is falling,
though we feel it not."
"I sought you, mistress," said Barbara, "all over the house, for Sir
Willmott Burrell advised me that he wished to speak with you in the oak
parlour, if it so please you, or in the library; my honoured master was
present."
"Did my father too want me?"
"No, madam; he said he would go to his chamber, for a little, before the
evening meal."
The young ladies, followed by Barbara, entered the house, and, as
Frances Cromwell pressed Constantia's hand, she felt it clammy and
chilling cold: she would have spoken, but, while arranging the necessary
words, her friend, with a more than usually dignified deportment,
entered the parlour. It was a dark, dim room, the frettings and
ornaments of black carved oak.
"Tell Sir Willmott Burrell I await him here," she said to Barbara, while
passing the threshold.
Frances Cromwell, over whose mind a feeling of terror was imperceptibly
stealing, would have remained, but Constance intimated that she would
receive Burrell alone.