She walked into the kitchen without a word, hung my hat up behind the door, and commenced clearing away the supper things.
"Ethelbertha rose, calm but severe.
"'Where have you been, Amenda?' she inquired.
"'Gadding half over the county with a lot of low soldiers,' answered Amenda, continuing her work.
"'You had on my hat,' I added.
"'Yes, sir,' replied Amenda, still continuing her work, 'it was the first thing that came to hand. What I'm thankful for is that it wasn't missis's best bonnet.'
"Whether Ethelbertha was mollified by the proper spirit displayed in this last remark, I cannot say, but I think it probable. At all events, it was in a voice more of sorrow than of anger that she resumed her examination.
"'You were walking with a soldier's arm around your waist when we passed you, Amenda?' she observed interrogatively.
"'I know, mum,' admitted Amenda, 'I found it there myself when the music stopped.'
"Ethelbertha looked her inquiries.
Amenda filled a saucepan with water, and then replied to them.
"'I'm a disgrace to a decent household,' she said; 'no mistress who respected herself would keep me a moment.
I ought to be put on the doorstep with my box and a month's wages.'
"'But why did you do it then?' said Ethelbertha, with natural astonishment.
"'Because I'm a helpless ninny, mum.
I can't help myself; if I see soldiers I'm bound to follow them. It runs in our family.
My poor cousin Emma was just such another fool.
She was engaged to be married to a quiet, respectable young fellow with a shop of his own, and three days before the wedding she ran off with a regiment of marines to Chatham and married the colour-sergeant.
That's what I shall end by doing.
I've been all the way to Sandgate with that lot you saw me with, and I've kissed four of them--the nasty wretches.
I'm a nice sort of girl to be walking out with a respectable milkman.'
"She was so deeply disgusted with herself that it seemed superfluous for anybody else to be indignant with her; and Ethelbertha changed her tone and tried to comfort her.
"'Oh, you'll get over all that nonsense, Amenda,' she said, laughingly; 'you see yourself how silly it is.
You must tell Mr. Bowles to keep you away from soldiers.'
"'Ah, I can't look at it in the same light way that you do, mum,' returned Amenda, somewhat reprovingly; 'a girl that can't see a bit of red marching down the street without wanting to rush out and follow it ain't fit to be anybody's wife.
Why, I should be leaving the shop with nobody in it about twice a week, and he'd have to go the round of all the barracks in London, looking for me.
I shall save up and get myself into a lunatic asylum, that's what I shall do.'
"Ethelbertha began to grow quite troubled.
'But surely this is something altogether new, Amenda,' she said; 'you must have often met soldiers when you've been out in London?'
"'Oh yes, one or two at a time, walking about anyhow, I can stand that all right. It's when there's a lot of them with a band that I lose my head.'
"'You don't know what it's like, mum,' she added, noticing Ethelbertha's puzzled expression; 'you've never had it. I only hope you never may.'
"We kept a careful watch over Amenda during the remainder of our stay at Folkestone, and an anxious time we had of it.
Every day some regiment or other would march through the town, and at the first sound of its music Amenda would become restless and excited.
The Pied Piper's reed could not have stirred the Hamelin children deeper than did those Sandgate bands the heart of our domestic.
Fortunately, they generally passed early in the morning when we were indoors, but one day, returning home to lunch, we heard distant strains dying away upon the Hythe Road.
We hurried in.
Ethelbertha ran down into the kitchen; it was empty!--up into Amenda's bedroom; it was vacant!
We called. There was no answer.
"'That miserable girl has gone off again,' said Ethelbertha.
'What a terrible misfortune it is for her. It's quite a disease.'
"Ethelbertha wanted me to go to Sandgate camp and inquire for her.
I was sorry for the girl myself, but the picture of a young and innocent-looking man wandering about a complicated camp, inquiring for a lost domestic, presenting itself to my mind, I said that I'd rather not.
"Ethelbertha thought me heartless, and said that if I would not go she would go herself.
I replied that I thought one female member of my household was enough in that camp at a time, and requested her not to.
Ethelbertha expressed her sense of my inhuman behaviour by haughtily declining to eat any lunch, and I expressed my sense of her unreasonableness by sweeping the whole meal into the grate, after which Ethelbertha suddenly developed exuberant affection for the cat (who didn't want anybody's love, but wanted to get under the grate after the lunch), and I became supernaturally absorbed in the day-before-yesterday's newspaper.
"In the afternoon, strolling out into the garden, I heard the faint cry of a female in distress.
I listened attentively, and the cry was repeated.
I thought it sounded like Amenda's voice, but where it came from I could not conceive.
It drew nearer, however, as I approached the bottom of the garden, and at last I located it in a small wooden shed, used by the proprietor of the house as a dark-room for developing photographs.
"The door was locked.