Part 13 (2/2)

It was nearly half-past nine before Caroline Graniger joined Mrs.

Brenton at breakfast. The girl was greatly upset.

”I never slept late in my life before,” she said. ”I am generally awake about six, and I always get I up soon after I wake.”

”You're like me, I expect,” said Mrs. Brenton. ”I never sleep very well the first part of the night when I am in a strange place, and then, of course, I am drowsy in the morning.”

”I was so excited,” said Caroline, ”I could not go to sleep. It was so strange and so delightful to be in such a nice room. I am not used to luxury. I think I know now how the children feel on Christmas Eve, when they hang up their stockings, or when they expect a birthday. I kept my eye on the chimney, almost expecting Santa Claus to appear every other moment.”

She laughed as she warmed her hands by the fire.

”Perhaps he did come, after all,” Agnes Brenton said, ”and there is something nice waiting for you to-day.”

Caroline Graniger turned and looked at the speaker.

”You have already filled my stocking,” she said, her thin face full of colour. Mrs. Brenton noticed that her eyes were not black, but dark, very dark blue. ”It was your goodness to me last night that made everything so wonderful, so delightful. I never knew that any one could be so kind as you are. I have a much better opinion of the world this morning....”

”Let us talk about yourself,” said Mrs. Brenton, as she poured out the coffee. ”Of course, you are not going back to Mrs. Baynhurst?”

”No,” said Caroline; she was silent a moment, and then she said ”No” a second time. ”But,” she added, ”I don't quite know what I _am_ going to do.” She stirred her coffee, and coloured. When she had that colour in her face she looked much younger, and rather attractive. ”I have been wondering if you would advise me,” she said, with some hesitation. ”I don't think I have the right to ask you, especially as you are so wonderfully kind to me; but people who are kind always have to pay some penalty. I found out that much when I was a very tiny child.”

”How old are you?” asked Mrs. Brenton.

Caroline knitted her brows.

”I believe I am about nineteen. But I don't really know. I only go by what Miss Beamish told me. That is the woman who kept the school where I lived for such a long time,” she explained; ”and she always said that I was about four when I first went to her.”

”Four years old,” said Agnes Brenton quickly. She felt a sharp pang of pity for that little forlorn four-year-old child of the past. ”That was starting life early with a vengeance.”

”Yes,” said Caroline Graniger, ”but we all have to begin some time or another, and as, apparently, there was no one to object, I began at four.” She spoke quite cheerfully. Then she smiled. ”Miss Beamish has often told me that I was a very difficult child. They could not get me to eat anything. She declares that very often she had to sit up half the night and nurse me because I would not go to sleep in a bed.” The smile rippled into laughter. ”I have often tried to imagine Miss Beamish nursing me,” she said. ”If you knew her you would realize how funny it sounds.”

”Funny!” said Agnes Brenton to herself.

She busied herself attending to the material comfort of her guest for a minute or two. Then she said--

”Of course I will advise you, Miss Graniger, and I shall be only too glad to help you if I can. Just tell me what you think you could do.

What would you like to do?” Mrs. Brenton asked, going straight to the point in her practical way.

”It is difficult,” said Caroline Graniger, ”for I don't quite know what I can do. I have no accomplishments. I adore music, but I was never taught a note. Music was an extra, and I was a charity girl. I can read and write, and do a little arithmetic; I can sew, and I can dig,” she finished with another smile. ”I am really quite a good gardener,” she said. ”Whatever I do, I want, if possible, to be somewhere where there is a garden, or at any rate where I can see gra.s.s and some trees. The oppression of bricks and mortar is a great sufferance to me! Mrs.

Baynhurst's house is built in by other houses; the rooms are so dreary.

There is no air, and the windows are never open, and I never got out. I used to drive with her occasionally, but I never walked.”

Agnes Brenton fretted her brows into a slight frown.

”Do you like children?” she asked, after a little pause.

The thin, sallow face lit up.

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