It was hardly done when a knock sounded at the door upon the passage.
"Young ladies!" a voice called,--Madam Routh's.
She and her friends had driven down from the Notch by sunset and
moonlight. Nobody had said anything to her of the disturbance when she
came in: her arrival had rather stopped the complaints that had begun;
for people are not malignant, after all, as a general thing, and there
is a curious propensity in human nature which cools off indignation even
at the greatest crimes, just as the culprit is likely to suffer. We are
apt to check the foot just as we might have planted it upon the noxious
creature, and to let off great state criminals on parole. Madam Routh
had seen the bright light and the gathering about the west wing. She had
caught some sounds of the commotion. She made her way at once to look
after her charge.
Sin Saxon was not a pupil now, and there was no condign punishment
actually to fear; but her heart stood still a second, for all that, and
she realized that she had been on the verge of an "awful scrape.
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