I wanted to come here this evening to keep an engagement
I'd made, but it's difficult for me to get out alone. Mrs. Ellsworth
doesn't like to be left, and she never lets me go anywhere without her
except to the house of some friends of mine, the only real friends I
have. It's odd, but _their_ name is Smith, and that saved my telling
a direct lie. Not that a half-lie isn't worse, it's so cowardly!
"Mrs. Ellsworth likes me to go to Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith's
because--I'm afraid because she thinks they're 'swells.' Mrs. Smith has a
duke for an uncle! Mrs. Ellsworth said 'yes' at once, when I asked, and
gave me her key and permission to stop out till half-past ten, though
everyone in the house is supposed to be in bed by ten. She's almost sure
to be in bed herself, but if she gets interested in one of the books I
brought from the library to-day, it's possible she may be sitting up to
read, and to ask about my evening.
"Our bedrooms are on the ground floor at the back of an addition to the
house. What if she should hear the latchkey (it's old fashioned and hard
to work), and what if she should come to the swing door at the end of the
corridor where she'd see you with me? What would you say or do?"
"H'm! It would be awkward.
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