'Bluebeard's closet.' She hurried into the house, and made but one
dash, standing before her astonished husband's dreamy eyes,
exclaiming, 'Pray give me the key of the cellaret; there's a poor man
just come home, fainting with exhaustion, Mr. Dusautoy wants some
brandy for him.'

Like a man but half awake, obeying an apparition, Mr. Kendal put his
hand into his pocket and gave her the key. She was instantly opening
the cellaret, seeking among the bottles, and asking questions all the
time. She proposed taking a jug of the kitchen-tea then in
operation, and Mr. Dusautoy caught at the idea, so that poor Lucy
beheld the dreadful spectacle of the vicar bearing a can full of
steaming tea, and Mrs. Kendal a small cup with the 'spirituous
liquor.' What was the asparagus to this?

Albinia told her to go on to Mrs. Meadows', and that she should soon
follow. She intended to have gone the moment that she had carried in
the cup, leaving Mr. Dusautoy in the cottage, but the poor trembling
frightened wife needed woman's sympathy and soothing, and she waited
to comfort her, and to see the pair more able to enjoy the meeting,
in their tidy, but bare and damp-looking cottage. She promised broth
for the morrow, and took her leave, the vicar coming away at the same
time.

'Thank you,' he said, warmly, as they came out, and turned to mount
the hill together.

'May I go and call on them again?'

'It will be very kind in you. Poor Simkins is a steady, good sort of