Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/231

Rh "I have sent her in a very nice woman—my late maid, Mary Ball that was. As to ma'mselle, she has run away—a very good thing, in my opinion, if she hasn't taken more than enough with her—and I have engaged a nurse for the night, and positively bargained that you shall have a whole night's rest, so make your mind at ease, and go and do as I tell you." When Helen was quite alone, she sat down to look back on the miraculous change in her situation, for such it really appeared, and then she knelt down to thank the Great Bestower. Her spirits were composed, her frame refreshed; she found time for every thing, and was descending the stairs, when a carriage stopped at the door. Just as she reached the bottom step, a pair of long thin arms were thrown around her, her cheek was kissed, and Arthur's voice, in its most joyful tones, exclaimed, "I have got a lift for every man of them. The king 's a sailor himself, God bless him, and he knows what's what; but we're off in one hour, or I shall be sent for, and choused out of the election. The present excuse is, that which is made to the sultan, before whom no one can appear uncloathed, that I am not fit to be seen by a king, and barely so by his subjects."