now and again to look at the queer little creature that had plunged her into such unexpected difficulties. In despair she thrust her hands into her hair, and gnawed at her fingers. Finally she flung herself into a chair by the window, and, staring blankly into the street, tried to devise some means out of her dilemma. The more she thought of it, the more serious and unpleasant did it appear. How Augusta could have been so foolish as to finish the contents of the bottle, how the bottle itself came to be broken, she could only imagine. The result at any rate was sufficiently deplorable. Her sister had not stopped at eight-and-thirty, nor eight-and-twenty, nor even eighteen, as would have been natural and delightful, but had gone at a bound to about eight days old.
"What a mercy," thought Prudence, kind-hearted in the midst of her anger and perplexity, "what a mercy that there were not a few drops more, or what would have become of her!"
After long cogitation the lady who had hitherto been the younger Miss Semaphore rose, went into her own room, dressed, bathed her swollen eyelids, and smoothed her hair. Then she returned' to her sister's bedside.
