"
But just then Kate really saw the carriage drawn up where there was
an opening in the railings, and the servant holding open the door for
them. Had they been seen? There was no knowing! Lady Barbara did
not say one single word; but that need not have been surprising--only
how very straight her back was, how fixed her marble mouth and chin!
It was more like Diana's head than ever--Diana when she was shooting
all Niobe's daughters, thought Kate, in her dreamy, vague alarm.
Then she looked at Josephine on the back seat, to see what she
thought of it; but the brown sallow face in the little bonnet was
quite still and like itself--beyond Kate's power to read.
The stillness, doubt, and suspense, were almost unbearable. She
longed to speak, but had no courage, and could almost have screamed
with desire to have it over, end as it would. Yet at last, when the
carriage did turn into Bruton Street, fright and shame had so
entirely the upper hand, that she read the numbers on every door,
wishing the carriage would only stand still at each, or go slower,
that she might put off the moment of knowing whether she was found
out.
They stopped; the few seconds of ringing, of opening the doors, of
getting out, were over. She knew how it would be, when, instead of
going upstairs, her aunt opened the schoolroom door, beckoned her in,
and said gravely, "Lady Caergwent, while you are under my charge, it
is my duty to make you obey me.
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