Part 4 (2/2)

'I didn't know he was _ill_,' she replied. 'I didn't know big people were ill except for going to die, like our 'nother grandmamma. Papa's had the measles and chicken-pox when he was little, hasn't he? I thought it was only children that could be ill to get better like that.'

Mrs. Vane glanced at Rosalys in a sort of despair. But before Alie could say anything to smooth matters, her mother called Bridget from her seat and made her stand before her.

'Bridget,' she said, 'I don't know what to say to you. Have you no heart or feeling at all? How _can_ you say such things. I do not believe in your not understanding; you can understand when you choose, and you are nearly eight years old. You must know how miserably anxious I have been and still am about your father; you _must_ know it is for his health we have come to this strange, dreary place, away from every one we care for, and you can talk in that cold-hearted, cold-blooded way about dying and not getting better and--and----' Mrs. Vane's voice trembled and quivered. She seemed almost as if she were going to cry. Alie came and stood beside her, gently putting her arm round her mother and looking daggers at Bride. Mamma was nervous and over-tired, she knew; she had had so much to go through lately. How could Biddy be so naughty and unfeeling? And yet, as the words pa.s.sed through her mind, Rosalys hesitated. Biddy was not really unfeeling--it was not the word for her.

It was more as if she would not take the trouble to feel or to understand anything that was not her own special concern; there was a queer kind of laziness about her, which led to selfishness. It was as if her mind and heart were asleep sometimes.

But she could feel. Her face was all puckered up now; there was no temper or sullenness about it, but real pale-faced distress.

'Mamma,' she said brokenly, 'I didn't, oh, truly, I didn't mean it that way. I know papa isn't old enough to die; but I thought he was too big to be ill like that.'

'Biddy,' said Alie sternly, 'you are talking nonsense again. You know big people are ill often, and sometimes they get better and sometimes they die. Don't you remember Mrs. Hay--Meta Hay's mamma? She was ill and----'

'Yes, I quite forgot,' exclaimed Biddy eagerly; 'I didn't think. Yes, Meta's mamma was very ill, and she died. I wish I'd remembered; and she wasn't at all old like Grandmamma Vane.'

She spoke almost cheerfully. Again Mrs. Vane glanced at her elder daughter.

'It's no use,' she was beginning, but Alie interrupted. How she wished the unfortunate Mrs. Hay had not been the first instance to occur to her!

'_Children_ get ill and die too sometimes,' Alie went on, 'and big people very often get better. There was Captain Leonard next door to us at home----'

'And--I know--the boy-that-brought-the-potatoes' papa,' cried Biddy. 'I _am_ so glad I thought of him. I was in the kitchen one morning fetching sand for Tweetums's cage and he came in, and cook asked how was his papa, and he said, ”Finely better, I thank ye, mum.” I think cook said he was a _Hirish_ boy,' Bridget hurried on in her excitement--and when she was excited I am afraid her 'h's' were apt to suffer--Mrs. Vane gasped! 'I am _so_ glad I thought of him. Papa will get better like the potato boy's father. I'll say it in my prayers. Dear mamma, I won't forget. And I _will_ try to be good and not tear my frocks nor speak without thinking.'

The tears were coming now, but Biddy knew mamma did not like her to begin to cry, and truly it was no wonder, for once she began it was by no means easy to say when she would leave off! She choked them down as well as she could. And the little face, hot and flushed now, was timidly raised to her mother's for a kiss of forgiveness.

It was not refused, but a sigh accompanied it, which went to the child's heart. But there was no time for more, as at that moment the hall door was heard to open and Mr. Vane's and Rough's voices sounded outside.

Quite subdued, desperately penitent, Bridget went back to her place. Her head was full as well as her heart. She had so many things to think over that she felt as if she could not eat. First and foremost was the strange newly awakened anxiety about her father. She looked at him as he came in as she had never looked at him before, almost expecting to see some great and appalling change in his appearance. But no--he seemed much as usual--his face was indeed reddened a little by his brisk walk in the chill air, and his voice was as cheery as ever. Biddy gave a loud, most audible sigh of relief. Mr. Vane started and interrupted himself in the middle of a lively account of the adventures he and Randolph had met with in their walk.

'My dear Biddy,' he said. 'What _can_ you have to sigh about in that appalling way?'

Bridget opened her mouth as if to speak, but Rosalys, trembling as to what she might not be going to say, interrupted.

'Please, papa, don't ask her just now,' she said; 'do go on telling us about what sort of a place Seacove is,' and she added in a whisper, as she gave a little private tug to his sleeve, 'Biddy's been rather--tiresome, and if she begins to cry----'

CHAPTER IV

BIDDY HAS SOME NEW THOUGHTS

'O, children take long to grow.'

JEAN INGELOW.

Mr. Vane nodded in token of comprehending Alie's hint.

'You must walk to Seacove to-morrow and see it for yourselves,' he said.

'That is to say if it is fine,' said Mrs. Vane. 'Doesn't it look stormy to-night?'

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