"Oh, nothing, of course--nothing serious. I sent her away. She said she would bring proofs; but I never saw her again."
"You wouldn't, of course. One of those creatures, I suppose," and Mrs. Espart curled her lip distastefully and added: "I suppose some young men will do those things--no doubt that's what it was; but it's rather disgusting, isn't it? And how very horrible for you! But, Nellie, where does the nightmare come in?"
"With the girl," Lady Burdon said and gave a little uneasy movement as though even the recollection worried her. "With the girl. I dream of her whenever--that's the odd thing--whenever something particular happens. See her just as I saw her then and say 'I am Lady Burdon,' and she says 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' Then I get that dreadful nightmare feeling--you know what it is--and say 'I hold!' and she says 'No, you do not--Nay, I hold!' It's too silly--but you know what nightmares are. And it only comes when something particular happens--or rather is going to happen. The night before we heard of old Lady Burdon's death, that was once. Then the night before we came down here for that stay when Rollo met his friend Percival and we began to come regularly. Then the night my husband died." She stopped, smiled because Mrs. Espart was smiling at her indulgently, as one smiles at another's unreasonable fears, but went on, "and now last night!"
Mrs. Espart laughed outright: "Why, what a hollow moan, Nellie!--'and now last night!' I'd no idea you were such a goose. You've let the silly thing get on your silly nerves."
"Only because things have always happened with it."
Her concern, however foolish, was clearly so genuine that Mrs. Espart changed banter for sympathetic reassurance. "Why, Nellie, really you must be more sensible! Why, dreaming it last night proves how silly it is. What's happened to-day? Look, I'll tell you what's happened to-day, and it's something to settle your wretched girl and your omens once and for all. She nightmared you last night and to-day we've settled how happy we are all going to be with our young folk married! There! Tell her that with my compliments if she ever comes again!"
Her air was so brisk and stimulating that Lady Burdon was made to laugh; and her facts were so convincing that the laugh was followed by a little sigh of happiness, and Lady Burdon said: "Why, Ella, it's funny, isn't it, how in this life some things _do_ go just as one wishes, for all that people say to the contrary?"