Part 13 (1/2)

said Celestina, in her womanly little way.

Mrs. Vane thanked her; then she and Rosalys walked on, and the two small damsels were left alone.

'Why must you be in by half-past four?' asked Biddy.

'It's getting dark by then,' said Celestina. 'Besides there's things to do. I get the tea ready very often. When mother's not very busy it waits for her till she can leave the shop, but to-day I know she's busy, 'cos father's got a great many letters to write. So I'll get the table all ready.'

Bridget gazed at her.

'Do you like doing it?' she asked. 'You're such a little girl, you see--not much bigger than me, and you play with dolls.'

'I like to be useful to mother,' said Celestina simply.

This was rather a new idea to Bridget, and she was sometimes very lazy about thinking over new ideas.

'Alie's useful to mamma, I suppose,' she said, 'but then she's the eldest. And you're the only one--that's why, I daresay. Is it nice to be the only one?'

'Sometimes it's very alone,' said Celestina, 'some days when mother's very busy and I scarcely see her, and I've n.o.body to show the dolls to.'

'I know,' said Biddy. 'I'm rather alone too, for Alie's so big, you see.

Oh, Celestina, do look, isn't this a beauty? Look, it's all pinky inside. Now I've got six and this beauty. I think that'll do for to-day.

I'm tired of looking.'

'Sometimes I look for ever so long--a whole hour,' said Celestina, rather taken aback by Biddy's fitfulness. 'But perhaps we'd better run about a little to keep warm. It isn't like as if it was summer.'

'I'm not cold and I don't like running,' said Biddy. 'Let's just walk, Celestina, and you tell me things. Oh, look at the sun--he's getting redder and redder--and look at the lighthouse, it's s.h.i.+ning red too. Is it a fire burning inside, do you think, Celestina?'

'No, it's the sun's redness s.h.i.+ning on the gla.s.s. The top room is all windows--I've been there once,' she said. 'It's a good way to walk though it looks so near, and there's some water too between. Father took us once in a boat, mother and me, when the tide was in, and we had dinner there; we took it with us, and there was a nice old man father knew. And when the tide went out we came over a bit of water till we got to the stones, in the boat, and then the boatman took it back, and we walked home right along the stones--you see where I mean?'

She pointed to the rocky ridge which I told you ran out from the sh.o.r.e to the lighthouse. Bridget listened with the greatest interest.

'How nice,' she said. 'Couldn't you have walked the whole way? I'm sure there isn't any water between now--_I_ can't see it. It must have gone away.'

'Oh no, it hasn't,' said Celestina. 'It's always there: it couldn't go away. You couldn't ever get to the lighthouse without a boat; once one of the men had to come in a hurry, and father said he had to wade to over his waist.'

But Bridget was not convinced. She stood there gazing out seawards at the lighthouse.

'I would like to go there,' she said. 'Can't you see a long way from the top room that's all windows, Celestina? I should think you could see to the--what do they call that thing at the top of the world--the north stick, is it?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'I would like to go out there,' she said. P. 115.]

Celestina was not very much given to laughing, but this was too funny.

'The North Pole, you mean,' she said. 'Oh no, you couldn't see to _there_, I'm quite sure. Besides, there isn't anything to see like that--not a pole sticking up in the ground--it's just the name of a place. Father's told me all about it. And so did the old man at the lighthouse. Oh, I would like to go there--better than anywhere--just think how strange it must be, all the snow and the ice mountains and everything quite, _quite_ still!'

CHAPTER VIII

A NICE PLAN