She need not however, good lady, so far as her party was concerned, have afflicted herself; for it was pronounced the next day to have been so enlivened by the elopement that it was quite delightful.
Willoughby and Alfred, having ascertained that a chariot and four, the horses' heads to the east, had been seen driving off from the Montpelier gates the night before at a furious rate, set out in pursuit on the road thus indicated. They soon, however, lost all traces of the fugitives, and after an absence of two or three days, returned to Cheltenham. Lady Arden had by this time received a letter announcing the marriage, and begging pardon, and so forth. There was therefore nothing more to be done, and Willoughby accordingly repaired to Lady Palliser's, to inquire after the health of Caroline. As he crossed the little lawn, he observed great ladders set up against the front of the house, and persons within and without apparently employed in cleaning the windows. The hall door was open, and a slatternly looking woman, not the least like a servant, on the steps, washing them down and rubbing them white with a stone. He knocked, and another woman, who was crossing the hall at the moment, armed with a broom and a duster, threw them aside, came forward, and asked him if he was wanting the lodgings. "They will not be quite ready for coming into before twelve o'clock to-morrow," she continued, without waiting for a reply; then fancying that Willoughby looked disappointed, she added, "If you're particular about coming in to-night, sir, I'll set more hands to work, and see what can be done; but the family only left this morning, and they kept so many servants, that there is no saying all there's to do after them; for as for servants, as I _sais_, they always makes more work than three masters, or their mistresses either, which was the cause why I was endeavouring to assist a little myself just with dusting the book-shelves."
"Has Lady Palliser then left Cheltenham, or only changed her house?" asked Willoughby.
"Oh, left Cheltenham, sir. Her ladyship was not likely to change from my house while she staid, if it had been seven years. Indeed, situation and all, where could she be so well, except it were next door, which also belongs to me. Sixteen guineas a week, sir, is the lowest farthing I can take! Indeed they should have been twenty, but you seem such a nice civil spoken gentleman that----"