inging in his cage. She was always in the habit of feeding
the bird herself. Some groundsel was strewed on a table which stood
immediately under the cage. I put a book among the groundsel. In the
drawing-room I found more cheering opportunities of emptying my bag. My
aunt's favourite musical pieces were on the piano. I slipped in two more
books among the music. I disposed of another in the back drawing-room,
under some unfinished embroidery, which I knew to be of Lady Verinder's
working. A third little room opened out of the back drawing-room, from
which it was shut off by curtains instead of a door. My aunt's plain
old-fashioned fan was on the chimney-piece. I opened my ninth book at a
very special passage, and put the fan in as a marker, to keep the place.
The question then came, whether I should go higher still, and try the
bed-room floor--at the risk, undoubtedly, of being insulted, if the
person with the cap-ribbons happened to be in the upper regions of the
house, and to find me put. But oh, what of that? It is a poor Christian
that is afraid of being insulted. I went upstairs, prepared to bear
anything. All was silent and solitary--it was the servants' tea-time,
I suppose. My aunt's room was in front. The miniature of my late dear
uncle, Sir John, hung on the wall opposite the bed. It seemed to smile
at me; it seemed to say, "Drusilla! deposit a book." There were tables
on either side of my aunt's bed. She was a bad sleeper, and wanted, or
thought she wanted, many things at night. I put a book near the matches
on one side, and a book under the box of chocolate drops on the other.
Whether she wanted a light, or whether she wanted a drop, there was a
precious publication to meet her eye, or to meet her hand, and to say
with silent eloquence, in either case, "Come, try me! try me!" But one
book was now left at the bottom of my bag, and but one apartment was
still unexplored--the bath-room, which opened out of the bed-room. I
peeped in; and the holy inner voice that never deceives, whispered to
me, "You have met her, Drusilla, everywhere else; meet her at the bath,
and the work is done." I observed a dressing-gown thrown across a chair.
It had a pocket in it, and in that pocket I put my last book. Can words
express my exquisite sense of duty done, when I had slipped out of the
house, unsuspected by any of them, and when I found myself in the street
with my empty bag under my arm? Oh, my worldly friends, pursuing the
ph