But Madonna seemed--quite
incomprehensibly to the servant--to be bent on remaining in the passage
till she had finished writing some lines which she had just then begun
to trace on her slate. When they were completed, she showed them to
Patty, who read with considerable astonishment these words: "Ask where
his sitting-room is, and if I can go into it. I want to leave something
for him there with my own hands, if the room is empty."
After looking at her young mistress's eager face in great amazement for
a moment or two, Patty asked the required questions; prefacing them
with some words of explanation which drew from the tobacconist's wife
many voluble expressions of sympathy and admiration for Madonna. At
last, there came to an end; and the desired answers to the questions on
the slate were readily given enough, and duly, though rather slowly,
written down by Patty, for her young lady's benefit. The sitting-room
belonging to Mr. Thorpe and the other gentleman, was the front room on
the first floor. Nobody was in it now. Would the lady like to be
shown--
Here Madonna arrested the servant's further progress with the slate
pencil--nodded to indicate that she understood what had been
written--and then, with her little packet of money ready in her hand,
lightly ran up the first flight of stairs; ascending them so quickly
that she was on the landing before Patty and the landlady had settled
which of the two ought to have officially preceded her.
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