they did not know what to do with her. Asking wherein her oddness
consisted, and learning that it was mostly in silence and tears, she
was not sorry to gather that some disappointment had befallen her, and
felt considerable curiosity to know what it was. She therefore told
him to send her upstairs.

Meantime Polly, the housemaid, seeing plainly enough from her return
in the middle of her holiday, and from her utter dejection, that
Alice's expectations had been frustrated, and cherishing no little
resentment against her because of her _uppishness_ on the first news
of her good fortune, had been ungenerous enough to take her revenge in
a way as stinging in effect as bitter in intention; for she loudly
protested that no amount of such luck as she pretended to suppose in
Alice's possession, would have induced _her_ to behave herself so that
a handsome honest fellow like John Jephson should be driven to despise
her, and take up with her betters. When her mistress's message came,
Alice was only too glad to find refuge from the kitchen in the
drawing-room.

The moment she entered, she fell on her knees at the foot of the couch
on which her mistress lay, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed
grievously.

Nor was the change more remarkable in her bearing than in her person.
She was pale and worn, and had a hunted look--was in fact a mere
shadow of what she had been. For a time her mistress found it
impossible to quiet her so as to draw from her her story: tears and
sobs combined with repugnance to hold her silent.

"Oh, ma'am!" she burst out at length, wringing her hands, "how ever