Part 13 (2/2)

”This is just what you want, Henry,” she said, with a brighter look in her face than he had seen there for months. ”I shall soon have you yourself again now.”

Captain Caldwell's spirits also went up.

In the evening they were all together in the sitting-room. Mrs.

Caldwell was playing little songs for Mildred to sing, Baby Bernadine was playing with her bricks upon the floor, and Beth as usual was hanging about her father. He had shaken off his despondency, and was quite lively for the moment, walking up and down the room, and making merry remarks to his wife in Italian, at which she laughed a good deal.

”Come, Beth, fetch 'Ingoldsby.' We shall just come to my favourite, and finish the book before you go to bed,” he said.

Beth brought the book, and then climbed up on his knee, and settled there happily, with her head on his shoulder.

”As I laye a-thynkynge, the golden sun was sinking, O merrie sang that Bird as it glitter'd on her breast, With a thousand gorgeous dyes, While soaring to the skies, 'Mid the stars she seem'd to rise, As to her nest;

As I laye a-thynkynge, her meaning was exprest:-- 'Follow, follow me away, It boots not to delay,'-- 'Twas so she seemed to saye, 'HERE IS REST!'”

After he had read those last lines, there was a moment's silence, and then Beth burst into a tempest of tears. ”O papa--papa! No, no, no!”

she sobbed. ”I couldn't bear it.”

”What _is_ the matter with the child?” Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, starting up.

”'The vision and the faculty divine,' I think,” her father answered.

”Leave her to me.”

Beth was awake when Anne entered the nursery next morning to call the children.

”Get up, and be good,” Anne said. ”Your pa's ill.”

Mrs. Caldwell came into the nursery immediately afterwards, very much agitated. She kissed Beth, and from that moment the child was calm; but there settled upon her pathetic little face a terrible look of age and anxiety.

When she was dressed, she ran right into her father's room before any one could stop her. He was moaning--”O my head, my head! O my head, my head!” over and over again.

”You mustn't stay here, little woman--not to-day,” the doctor said.

”It will make your father worse if you do.”

Beth stole from the room, and returned to the nursery. There, however, she could still hear her father moaning, and she could not bear it, so she took her prayer-book, by way of life-saving apparatus, and went down to the kitchen to ”see” what the servants were thinking--her own significant expression. They were all strangely subdued. ”Sit down, Miss Beth,” Biddy said kindly. ”Sit down in the window there wid your book if you want company. It's a sore heart you'll be having, or I'm much mistaken.”

Beth sat in the window the whole morning, reading prayers to herself, while she watched and waited. The doctor sent Riley down from the sick-room several times to fetch things, and each time Beth consulted his countenance anxiously for news, but asked no questions. Biddy tried to persuade her to eat, but the child could not touch anything.

Late in the afternoon Riley came down in a hurry.

”Is the master better, Pat?” Biddy demanded.

”'Deed, thin, he isn't,” Riley replied; ”and the doctor's sending me off on the horse as hard as I can go for Dr. Jamieson.”

”Och, thin, if the doctor's sending you for Dr. Jamieson it's all up.

He's niver sent for till the last. The Lord himself won't save him now.”

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