Alas! no; the recently active, ready old lady was utterly stricken,
and as yet held in the deadly grasp of paralysis, unconscious of all
that passed around her.

Susan found herself obliged at once to take up the reins, and become
head nurse and housekeeper. The old squire trusted implicitly to
her, and helplessly put the keys into her hands, and the serving-men
and maids, in some shame at the condition in which the hall had been
found, bestirred themselves to set it in order, so that there was a
chance of the ordinary appearance of things being restored by supper-
time, when Richard hoped to persuade his father to come down to his
usual place.

Long before this, however, a trampling had been heard in the court,
and a shrill voice, well known to Richard and Susan, was heard
demanding, "Come home, is she--Master Diccon too? More shame for
you, you sluttish queans and lazy lubbers, never to have let me know;
but none of you have any respect--"

A visit from my Lady Countess was a greater favour to such a
household as that of Bridgefield than it would be to a cottage of the
present day; Richard was hurrying downstairs, and Susan only tarried
to throw off the housewifely apron in which she had been compounding
a cooling drink for the poor old lady, and to wash her hands, while
Humfrey, rushing up to her, exclaimed "Mother, mother, is it the
Queen?"

Queen Elizabeth herself was not inaptly represented by her namesake
of Hardwicke, the Queen of Hallamshire, sitting on her great white