Deans," said the groom of the chambers.
"And I--I--I am sure, I knows as little," said the dame of the dairy,
while some communication seemed to tremble on her lips, which, at a
glance of Archibald's eye, she appeared to swallow down, and compressed
her lips thereafter into a state of extreme and vigilant firmness, as if
she had been afraid of its bolting out before she was aware.
Jeanie saw there was to be something concealed from her, and it was only
the repeated assurances of Archibald that her father--her sister--all her
friends were, as far as he knew, well and happy, that at all pacified her
alarm. From such respectable people as those with whom she travelled she
could apprehend no harm, and yet her distress was so obvious, that
Archibald, as a last resource, pulled out, and put into her hand, a slip
of paper, on which these words were written:--
"Jeanie Deans--You will do me a favour by going with Archibald and my
female domestic a day's journey beyond Glasgow, and asking them no
questions, which will greatly oblige your friend, 'Argyle & Greenwich.'"
Although this laconic epistle, from a nobleman to whom she was bound by
such inestimable obligations, silenced all Jeanie's objections to the
proposed route, it rather added to than diminished the eagerness of her
curiosity.
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