But the time she spent over it seemed interminable before I heard her utter a sharp cry and saw the curtains shake as she clutched them.
It seemed the proper moment to proffer help, but before either Letty or I could start forward, her command rang out in smothered but peremptory tones: "Keep back! I want no one here!" and we stopped, each looking at the other in very natural consternation.

And when, after another seemingly interminable interval, she finally stepped forth, I noted a haggard change in her face, and that her coat had been torn open and even the front of her dress wrenched apart as if she felt herself suffocating, or as if--but this alternative only suggested itself to me later and I shall refrain from mentioning it now.
Crossing the floor with a stumbling step, with the paper which had roused all this indignation still in her hand, she paused before the now seriously alarmed Letty, and demanded in great excitement: "Who pinned that paper on my child?
You know; you saw it done.

Was it a man or--" "Oh no, ma'am, no, ma'am," protested the girl.

"No man came near her.

It was a woman--a nice-looking woman." "A woman!" Mrs.Packard's tone was incredulous.