She pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath.
‘ So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt,’ she looked down at her young mistress, ‘or found myself worried,’ she looked down at her again, ‘I might go to her, and be considerately treated. I was to think of it, and could speak to her by the church. So I went there to thank her.’
‘ Tatty,’ said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her shoulder that the other might take it, ‘Miss Wade almost frightened me when we parted, and I scarcely like to think of her just now as having been so near me without my knowing it. Tatty dear!’
Tatty stood for a moment, immovable.
‘ Hey?’ cried Mr Meagles. ‘Count another five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’
She might have counted a dozen, when she bent and put her lip
