What day was it? Saturday—the assembly! She sat in confusion a moment, wondering why she was dressed. Then she remembered the whole dreadful situation and sighed. She’d best get ready for the ordeals of the day. She washed up and put on her second-best sprigged muslin before going to the room where her uncle had spent the night. Lord Edwin was still asleep, but the stertorous snores had dwindled to a rumble, and after she gave him a few shakes, he opened his close-set eyes and said, “Yes, yes, I’m awake. Oh, my head! It feels like a sack of rocks.” His eyes were as red as a ferret’s, made to look even worse in his ashen face. “That was a bad bottle of wine I drank last night,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, what is it, Mary Anne? Is Fitch ready to arrange the deal with Robertson?” She explained the true situation to him two or three times till he grasped all the awful ramifications. He seemed to shrivel before her very eyes. Was this shrunken, frightened, foolish old man to be her savior?
