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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My New Home, by Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My New Home
+
+Author: Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
+Illustrator: L. Leslie Brooke
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26310]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NEW HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Annie McGuire, Lindy Walsh and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+               +------------------------------------------+
+               |            Transcriber's Note            |
+               |Spelling, punctuation and inconsistencies |
+               |in the original book have been retained.  |
+               +------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Book Cover]
+
+
+
+
+  MY NEW HOME
+
+[Illustration: 'I'd like to know your sisters that are as little as me's
+names.'--p. 39.] _Front._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Title Page]
+
+
+  MY NEW HOME
+
+  by Mrs Molesworth
+
+  Illustrated by
+  L Leslie Brooke
+
+  Macmillan and Co
+  London: 1894
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER I                                                         PAGE
+
+    WINDY GAP                                                          1
+
+  CHAPTER II
+
+    AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER                                         15
+
+  CHAPTER III
+
+    ONE AND SEVEN                                                     28
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+
+    NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN                                            43
+
+  CHAPTER V
+
+    A HAPPY DAY                                                       58
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+
+    'WAVING VIEW'                                                     71
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+
+    THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES                                         83
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+
+    TWO LETTERS                                                       96
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+
+    A GREAT CHANGE                                                   111
+
+  CHAPTER X
+
+    NO. 29 CHICHESTER SQUARE                                         125
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+
+    AN ARRIVAL                                                       139
+
+  CHAPTER XII
+
+    A CATASTROPHE                                                    153
+
+  CHAPTER XIII
+
+    HARRY                                                            168
+
+  CHAPTER XIV
+
+    KEZIA'S COUNSEL                                                  183
+
+  CHAPTER XV
+
+    'HAPPY EVER SINCE'                                               195
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  'I'd like to know your sisters that are as little as me's
+  names.'                                                  _Frontispiece_
+
+  Grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated,
+  so the next hour was spent very happily.                            67
+
+  'I do wonder why they are so late'.                                 82
+
+  A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
+  respectfully to grandmamma.                                        126
+
+  It was the portrait of a young girl.                               139
+
+  Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
+  first.                                                             160
+
+  It was all uphill too.                                             173
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WINDY GAP
+
+
+My name is Helena, and I am fourteen past. I have two other Christian
+names; one of them is rather queer. It is 'Naomi.' I don't mind having
+it, as I am never called by it, but I don't sign it often because it is
+such an odd name. My third name is not uncommon. It is just 'Charlotte.'
+So my whole name is 'Helena Charlotte Naomi Wingfield.'
+
+I have never been called by any short name, like 'Lena,' or 'Nellie.' I
+think the reason must be that I am an only child. I have never had any
+big brother to shout out 'Nell' all over the house, or dear baby sisters
+who couldn't say 'Helena' properly. And what seems still sadder than
+having no brothers or sisters, I have never had a mother that I could
+remember. For mamma died when I was not much more than a year old, and
+papa six months before that.
+
+But my history has not been as sad as you might think from this. I was
+very happy indeed when I was quite a little child. Till I was nine years
+old I really did not know what troubles were, for I lived with
+grandmamma, and she made up to me for everything I had not got: we loved
+each other so very dearly.
+
+I will tell you about our life.
+
+Grandmamma was not at all the sort of person most children think of when
+they hear of a grandmother in a story. She was not old, with white hair
+and spectacles and always a shawl on, even in the house, and very
+old-fashioned in her ways. She did wear caps, at least I _think_ she
+always did, for, of course, she was not _young_. But her hair was very
+nicely done under them, and they were pretty fluffy things. She made
+them herself, and she made a great many other things herself--for me
+too. For, you will perhaps wonder more than ever at my saying what a
+happy child I was, when I tell you that we were really _very_ poor.
+
+I cannot tell you exactly how much or how little we had to live upon,
+and _most_ children would not understand any the better if I did. For a
+hundred pounds a year even, sounds a great deal to a child, and yet it
+is very little indeed for one lady by herself to live upon, and of
+course still less for two people. And I don't think we had much more
+than that. Grandmamma told me when I grew old enough to understand
+better, that when I first came to live with her, after both papa and
+mamma were dead, and she found that there was no money for me--that was
+not poor papa's fault; he had done all that could be done, but the money
+was lost by other people's wrong-doing--well, as I was saying, when
+grandmamma found how it was, she thought over about doing something to
+make more. She was very clever in many ways; she could speak several
+languages, and she knew a lot about music, though she had given up
+playing, and she might have begun a school as far as her cleverness
+went. But she had no savings to furnish a large enough house with, and
+she did not know of any pupils. She could not bear the thought of
+parting with me, otherwise she might perhaps have gone to be some grand
+sort of housekeeper, which even quite, _quite_ ladies are sometimes, or
+she might have joined somebody in having a shop. But after a lot of
+thinking, she settled she would rather try to live on what she had, in
+some quiet, healthy, country place, though I believe she did earn some
+money by doing beautiful embroidery work, for I remember seeing her make
+lovely things which were never used in our house. This could not have
+gone on for long, however, as granny's eyes grew weak, and then I think
+she did no sewing except making our own clothes.
+
+Now I must tell you about our home. It was quite a strange place to
+grandmamma when we first came there, but _I_ can never feel as if it had
+been so. For it was the first place I can remember, as I was only a year
+old, or a little more--and children very seldom remember anything before
+they are three--when we settled down at Windy Gap.
+
+That was the name of our cottage. It is a nice breezy name, isn't it?
+though it does sound rather cold. And in some ways it _was_ cold, at
+least it was windy, and quite suited its name, though at some seasons of
+the year it was very calm and sheltered. Sheltered on two sides it
+always was, for it stood in a sort of nest a little way up the
+Middlemoor Hills, with high ground on the north and on the east, so that
+the only winds really to be feared could never do us much harm. It was
+more a nest than a 'gap,' for inside, it was so cosy, so very cosy,
+even in winter. The walls were nice and thick, built of rather
+gloomy-looking, rough gray stone, and the windows were deep--deep enough
+to have window-seats in them, where granny and I used often to sit with
+our books or work, as the inner part of the rooms, owing to the shape of
+the windows, was rather dark, and the rooms of course were small.
+
+We had a little drawing-room, which we always sat in, and a still
+smaller dining-room, which was very nice, though in reality it was more
+a kitchen than a dining-room. It had a neat kitchen range and an oven,
+and some things had to be cooked there, though there was another little
+kitchen across the passage where our servant Kezia did all the messy
+work--peeling potatoes, and washing up, and all those sorts of things,
+you know. The dining-room-kitchen was used as little as possible for
+cooking, and grandmamma was so very, very neat and particular that it
+was almost as pretty and cosy as the drawing-room.
+
+Upstairs there were three bedrooms--a good-sized one for grandmamma, a
+smaller one beside it for me, and a still smaller one with a rather
+sloping roof for Kezia. The house is very easy to understand, you see,
+for it was just three and three, three upstairs rooms over three
+downstairs ones. But there was rather a nice little entrance hall, or
+closed-in porch, and the passages were pretty wide. So it did not seem
+at all a poky or stuffy house though it was so small. Indeed, one could
+scarcely fancy a 'Windy Gap Cottage' anything but fresh and airy, could
+one?
+
+I was never tired of hearing the story of the day that grandmamma first
+came to Middlemead to look for a house. She told it me so often that I
+seem to know all about it just as if I had been with her, instead of
+being a stupid, helpless little baby left behind with my nurse--Kezia
+was my nurse then--while poor granny had to go travelling all about,
+house-hunting by herself!
+
+What made her first think of Middlemead she has never been able to
+remember. She did not know any one there, and she had never been there
+in her life. She fancies it was that she had read in some book or
+advertisement perhaps, that it was so very healthy, and dear
+grandmamma's one idea was to make me as strong as she could; for I was
+rather a delicate child. But for me, indeed, I don't think she would
+have cared where she lived, or to live at all, except that she was so
+very good.
+
+'As long as any one is left alive,' she has often said to me, 'it shows
+that there is something for them to be or to do in the world, and they
+must try to find out what it is.'
+
+But there was not much difficulty for grandmamma to find out what _her_
+principal use in the world was to be! It was all ready indeed--it was
+poor, little, puny, delicate, helpless _me_!
+
+So very likely it was as she thought--just the hearing how splendidly
+healthy the place was--that made her travel down to Middlemead in those
+early spring days, that first sad year after mamma's death, to look for
+a nest for her little fledgling. She arrived there in pretty good
+spirits; she had written to a house-agent and had got the names of two
+or three 'to let' houses, which she at once tramped off from the station
+to look at, for she was very anxious not to spend a penny more than she
+could help. But, oh dear, how her spirits went down! The houses were
+dreadful; one was a miserable sort of genteel cottage in a row of others
+all exactly the same, with lots of messy-looking children playing about
+in the untidy strips of garden in front. _That_ would certainly not do,
+for even if the house itself had been the least nice, grandmamma felt
+sure I would catch measles and scarlet-fever and hooping-cough every
+two or three days! The next one was a still more genteel 'semi-detached'
+villa, but it was very badly built, the walls were like paper, and it
+faced north and east, and had been standing empty, no doubt, for these
+reasons, for years. _It_ would not do. Then poor granny plodded back to
+the house agent's again. He isn't only a house agent, he has a
+stationer's and bookseller's shop, and his name is Timbs. I know him
+quite well. He is rather a nice man, and though she was a stranger of
+course, he seemed sorry for grandmamma's disappointment.
+
+'There are several very good little houses that I am sure you would
+like,' he said to her, 'and one or two of them are very small--but it is
+the rent. For though Middlemead is scarcely more than a village it is
+much in repute for its healthiness, and the rents are rising.'
+
+'What are the rents of the smallest of the houses you speak of?'
+grandmamma asked.
+
+'Forty pounds is the cheapest,' Mr. Timbs answered, 'and the situation
+of that is not so good. Rather low and chilly in winter, and somewhat
+lonely.'
+
+'I don't mind about the loneliness,' said grandmamma, 'but a low or
+damp situation would never do.'
+
+Mr. Timbs was looking over his lists as she spoke. Her words seemed to
+strike him, and he suddenly peered up through his spectacles.
+
+'You don't mind about loneliness,' he repeated. 'Then I wonder----' and
+he turned over the leaves of his book quickly. 'There _is_ another house
+to let,' he said; 'to tell the truth I had forgotten about it, for it
+has never been to let unfurnished before; and it would be considered too
+lonely for all the year round by most people.'
+
+'Are there no houses near?' asked grandmamma. 'I don't fancy Middlemead
+is the sort of place where one need fear burglars, and besides,' she
+went on with a little smile, 'we should not have much of value to steal.
+The silver plate that I have I shall leave for the most part in London.
+But in case of sudden illness or any alarm of that kind, I should not
+like to be out of reach of everybody.'
+
+'There are two or three small cottages close to the little house I am
+thinking of,' said Mr. Timbs, 'and the people in them are very
+respectable. I leave the key with one of them.'
+
+Then he went on to tell grandmamma exactly where it was, how to get
+there, and all about it, and with every word, dear granny said her
+heart grew lighter and lighter. She really began to hope she had found
+a nest for her poor little homeless bird--that was _me_, you
+understand--especially when Mr. Timbs finished up by saying that the
+rent was only twelve pounds a year, one pound a month. And she _had_
+made up her mind to give as much as twenty pounds if she could find
+nothing nice and healthy for less.
+
+She looked at her watch; yes, there was still time to go to see Windy
+Gap Cottage and yet get back to the station in time for the train she
+had fixed to go back by--that is to say, if she took a fly. She has
+often told me how she stood and considered about that fly. Was it worth
+while to go to the expense? Yes, she decided it was, for after all if
+she found nothing to suit us at Middlemead she would have to set off on
+her travels again to house-hunt somewhere else. It would be penny wise
+and pound foolish to save that fly.
+
+Mr. Timbs seemed pleased when she said she would go at once--I suppose
+so many people go to house agents asking about houses which they never
+take, that when anybody comes who is quite in earnest they feel like a
+fisherman when he has really hooked a fish. He grew quite eager and
+excited and said he would go with the lady himself, if she would allow
+him to take a seat beside the driver to save time. And of course granny
+was very glad for him to come.
+
+It was getting towards evening when she saw Windy Gap for the first
+time, and it happened to be a very still evening--the name hardly seemed
+suitable, and she said so to Mr. Timbs. He smiled and shook his head and
+answered that he only hoped if she did come there to live that she would
+not find the name _too_ suitable. Still, though there was a good deal of
+wind to be _heard_, he went on to explain that the cottage was, as I
+have already said, well sheltered on the cold sides, and also well and
+strongly built.
+
+'None of your "paper-mashy," one brick thick, run-up-to-tumble-down
+houses,' said Mr. Timbs with satisfaction, which was certainly quite
+true.
+
+The end of it was, as of course you know already, that grandmamma fixed
+to take it. She talked it all over with Mr. Timbs, who 'made notes,' and
+promised to write to her about one or two things that could not be
+settled at once, and then 'with a very thankful heart,' as she always
+says when she talks of that day, she drove away again off to the
+station.
+
+The sun was just beginning to think about setting when she walked down
+the little steep garden path and a short way over the rough, hill
+cart-track--for nothing on wheels can come quite close up to the gate of
+Windy Gap--and already she could see what a beautiful show there was
+going to be over there in the west. She stood still for a minute to look
+at it.
+
+'Yes, madam,' said old Timbs, though she had not spoken, 'yes, that is a
+sight worth adding a five pound note on to the rent of the cottage for,
+in my opinion. The sunsets here are something wonderful, and there's no
+house better placed for seeing them than Windy Gap. "Sunset View" it
+might have been called, I have often thought.'
+
+'I can quite believe what you say,' grandmamma replied, 'and I am very
+glad to have had a glimpse of it on this first visit.'
+
+Many and many a time since then have we sat or stood together there,
+granny and I, watching the sun's good-night. I think she must have begun
+to teach me to look at it while I was still almost a baby. For these
+wonderful sunsets seem mixed up in my mind with the very first things I
+can remember. And still more with the most solemn and beautiful thoughts
+I have ever had. I always fancied when I was _very_ tiny that if only we
+could have pushed away the long low stretch of hills which prevented
+our seeing the very last of the dear sun, we should have had an actual
+peep into heaven, or at least that we should have seen the golden gates
+leading there. And I never watched the sun set without sending a message
+by him to papa and mamma. Only in my own mind, of course. I never told
+grandmamma about it for years and years. But I did feel sure he went
+there every night and that the beautiful colours had to do with that
+somehow.
+
+Grandmamma felt as if the lovely glow in the sky was a sort of good omen
+for our life at Windy Gap, and she felt happier on her journey back in
+the railway that evening than she had done since papa and mamma died.
+
+She told Kezia and me all about it--you will be amused at my saying she
+told _me_, for of course I was only a baby and couldn't understand. But
+she used to fancy I _did_ understand a little, and she got into the way
+of talking to me when we were alone together especially, almost as if
+she was thinking aloud. I cannot remember the time when she didn't talk
+to me 'sensibly,' and perhaps that made me a little old for my age.
+Granny says I used to grow quite grave when she talked seriously, and
+that I would laugh and crow with pleasure when she seemed bright and
+happy. And this made her try more than anything else to _be_ bright and
+happy.
+
+Dear, dear grandmamma--how very, exceedingly unselfish she was! For I
+now see what a really sad life most people would have thought hers. All
+her dearest ones gone; her husband, her son and her son's wife--mamma, I
+mean--whom she had loved nearly, if not quite as much, as if she had
+been her own daughter; and she left behind when she was getting old, to
+take care of one tiny little baby girl--and to be so poor, too. I don't
+think even now I quite understand her goodness, but every day I am
+getting to see it more and more, even though at one time I was both
+ungrateful and very silly, as you will hear before you come to the end
+of this little history.
+
+And now that I have explained as well as I can about grandmamma and
+myself, and how and why we came to live in the funny little gray stone
+cottage perched up among the Middlemoor Hills, I will go on with what I
+can remember myself; for up till now, you see, all I have written has
+been what was told to me by other people, especially of course by
+granny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER
+
+
+No, perhaps I was rather hasty in saying I could now go straight on
+about what I remember myself. There are still a few things belonging to
+the time before I can remember, which I had better explain now, to keep
+it all in order.
+
+I have spoken of grandmamma as being alone in the world, and so she
+was--as far as having no one _very_ near her--no other children, and not
+any brothers or sisters of her own. And on my mother's side I had no
+relations worth counting. Mamma was an only child, and her father had
+married again after _her_ mother died, and then, some years after, he
+died himself, and mamma's half-brothers and sisters had never even seen
+her, as they were out in India. So none of her relations have anything
+to do with my story or with _me_.
+
+But grandmamma had one nephew whom she had been very fond of when he
+was a boy, and whom she had seen a good deal of, as he and papa were at
+school together. His name was not the same as ours, for he was the son
+of a sister of grandpapa's, not of a brother. It was Vandeleur, Mr.
+Cosmo Vandeleur.
+
+He was abroad when our great troubles came--I forget where, for though
+he was not a soldier, he moved about the world a good deal to all sorts
+of out-of-the-way places, and very often for months and months together,
+grandmamma never heard anything about him. And one of the things that
+made her still lonelier and sadder when we first came to Windy Gap was
+that he had never answered her letters, or written to her for a very
+long time.
+
+She thought it was impossible that he had not got her letters, and
+almost more impossible that he had not seen poor papa's death in some of
+the newspapers.
+
+And as it happened he had seen it and he had written to her once,
+anyway, though she never got the letter. He had troubles of his own that
+he did not say very much about, for he had married a good while ago, and
+though his wife was very nice, she was very, _very_ delicate.
+
+Still, his name was familiar to me. I can always remember hearing
+grandmamma talk of 'Cosmo,' and when she told me little anecdotes of
+papa as a boy, his cousin was pretty sure to come into the story.
+
+And Kezia used to speak of him too--'Master Cosmo,' she always called
+him. For she had been a young under-servant of grandmamma's long ago,
+when grandpapa was alive and before the money was lost.
+
+That is one thing I want to say--that though Kezia was our only servant,
+she was not at all common or rough. She turned herself into what is
+called 'a maid-of-all-work,' from being my nurse, just out of love for
+granny and me. And she was very good and very kind. Since I have grown
+older and have seen more of other children and how they live, I often
+think how much better off I was than most, even though my home was only
+a cottage and we lived so simply, and even poorly, in some ways.
+Everything was so open and happy about my life. I was not afraid of
+anybody or anything. And I have known children who, though their parents
+were very rich and they lived very grandly, had really a great deal to
+bear from cross or unkind nurses or maids, whom they were frightened to
+complain of. For children, unless they are _very_ spoilt, are not so
+ready to complain as big people think. I had nothing to complain of, but
+if I had had anything, it would have been easy to tell grandmamma all
+about it at once; it would never have entered my head not to tell her.
+She knew everything about me, and I knew everything about her that it
+was good for me to know while I was still so young--more, perhaps, than
+some people would think a child should know--about our not having much
+money and needing to be careful, and things like that. But it did not do
+me any harm. Children don't take _that_ kind of trouble to heart. I was
+proud of being treated sensibly, and of feeling that in many little ways
+I could help her as I could not have done if she had not explained.
+
+And if ever there was anything she did not tell me about, even the
+keeping it back was done in an open sort of way. Granny made no
+mysteries. She would just say simply--
+
+'I cannot tell you, my dear,' or 'You could not understand about it at
+present.'
+
+So that I trusted her--'always,' I was going to say, but, alas, there
+came a time when I did not trust her enough, and from that great fault
+of mine came all the troubles I ever had.
+
+_Now_ I will go straight on.
+
+Have you ever looked back and tried to find out what is really the very
+first thing you can remember? It is rather interesting--now and then the
+b--no, I don't mean to speak of them till they come properly into my
+story--now and then I try to look back like that, and I get a strange
+feeling that it is all there, if only I could keep hold of the thread,
+as it were. But I cannot; it melts into a mist, and the very first thing
+I _can_ clearly remember stands out the same again.
+
+This is it.
+
+I see myself--those looking backs always are like pictures; you seem to
+be watching yourself, even while you feel it is yourself--I see myself,
+a little trot of a girl, in a pale gray merino frock, with a muslin
+pinafore covering me nearly all over, and a broad sash of Roman colours,
+with a good deal of pale blue in it (I have the sash still, so it isn't
+much praise to my memory to know all about _it_), tied round my waist,
+running fast down the short steep garden path to where granny is
+standing at the gate. I go faster and faster, beginning to get a little
+frightened as I feel I can't stop myself. Then granny calls out--
+
+'Take care, take care, my darling,' and all in a minute I feel
+safe--caught in her arms, and held close. It is a lovely feeling. And
+then I hear her say--
+
+'My little girlie must not try to run so fast alone. She might have
+fallen and hurt herself badly if granny had not been there.'
+
+There is to me a sort of parable, or allegory, in that first thing I can
+remember, and I think it will seem to go on and fit into all my life,
+even if I live to be as old as grandmamma is now. It is like feeling
+that there are always arms ready to keep us safe, through all the
+foolish and even wrong things we do--if only we will trust them and run
+into them. I hope the children who _may_ some day read this won't say I
+am preaching, or make fun of it. I must tell what I really have felt and
+thought, or else it would be a pretence of a story altogether. And this
+first remembrance has always stayed with me.
+
+Then come the sunsets. I have told you a little about them, already. I
+must often have looked at them before I can remember, but one specially
+beautiful has kept in my mind because it was on one of my birthdays.
+
+I think it must have been my third birthday, though granny is half
+inclined to think it was my fourth. _I_ don't, because if it had been my
+fourth I should remember _some_ things between it and my third
+birthday, and I don't--nothing at all, between the running into granny's
+arms, which she too remembers, and which was before I was three, there
+is nothing I can get hold of, till that lovely sunset.
+
+I was sitting at the window when it began. I was rather tired--I suppose
+I had been excited by its being my birthday, for dear granny always
+contrived to give me some extra pleasures on that day--and I remember I
+had a new doll in my lap, whom I had been undressing to be ready to be
+put to bed with me. I almost think I had fallen asleep for a minute or
+two, for it seems as if all of a sudden I had caught sight of the sky.
+It must have been particularly beautiful, for I called out--
+
+'Oh, look, look, they're lighting all the beauty candles in heaven.
+Look, Dollysweet, it's for my birfday.'
+
+Grandmamma was in the room and she heard me. But for a minute or two she
+did not say anything, and I went on talking to Dolly and pretending or
+fancying that Dolly talked back to me.
+
+Then granny came softly behind me and stood looking out too. I did not
+know she was there till I heard her saying some words to herself. Of
+course I did not understand them, yet the sound of them must have stayed
+in my ears. Since then I have learnt the verses for myself, and they
+always come back to me when I see anything very beautiful--like the
+trees and the flowers in summer, or the stars at night, and above all,
+lovely sunsets.
+
+But all I heard then was just--
+
+          'Good beyond compare,
+  If thus Thy meaner works are fair'--
+
+and all I _remembered_ was--
+
+  '... beyond compare,
+              ... are fair.'
+
+I said them over and over to myself, and a funny fancy grew out of them,
+when I got to understand what 'beyond' meant. I took it into my head
+that 'compare' was the name of the hills, which, as I have said, came
+between us and the horizon on the west, and prevented our seeing the
+last of the sunset.
+
+And I used to make wonderful fairy stories to myself about the country
+beyond or behind those hills--the country I called 'Compare,' where
+something, or everything--for I had lost the words just before, was
+'fair' in some marvellous way I could not even picture to myself. For I
+soon learnt to know that 'fair' meant beautiful--I think I learnt it
+first from some of the old fairy stories grandmamma used to tell me when
+we sat at work.
+
+That evening she took me up in her arms and kissed me.
+
+'The sun is going to bed,' she said to me, 'and so must my little
+Helena, even though it is her birthday.'
+
+'And so must Dollysweet,' I said. I always called that doll
+'Dollysweet,' and I ran the words together as if it was one name.
+
+'Yes, certainly,' said granny.
+
+Then she took my hand and I trotted upstairs beside her, carrying
+Dollysweet, of course. And there, up in my little room--I had already
+begun to sleep alone in my little room, though the door was always left
+open between it and grandmamma's--there, at the ending of my birthday
+was another lovely surprise. For, standing in a chair beside my cot was
+a bed for my doll--_so_ pretty and cosy-looking.
+
+Wasn't it nice of granny? I never knew any one like her for having _new_
+sort of ideas. It made me go to bed so very, very happily, and that is
+not always the case the night of a birthday. I have known children who,
+even when they are pretty big, cry themselves to sleep because the
+long-looked-for day is over.
+
+It did not matter to me that my dolly's bed had cost nothing--except,
+indeed, what was far more really precious than money--granny's loving
+thought and work. It was made out of a strong cardboard box--the lid
+fastened to the box, standing up at one end like the head part of a
+French bed. And it was all beautifully covered with pink calico, which
+grandmamma had had 'by her.' Granny was rather old-fashioned in some
+ways, and fond of keeping a few odds and ends 'by her.' And over that
+again, white muslin, all fruzzled on, that had once been pinafores of
+mine, but had got too worn to use any more in that way.
+
+There were little blankets, too, worked round with pink wool, and little
+sheets, and everything--all made out of nothing but love and
+contrivance!
+
+It was so delightful to wake the next morning and see Dollysweet in her
+nest beside me. She slept there every night for several years, and I am
+afraid after some time she slept there a good deal in the day also. For
+I gave up playing with dolls rather young--playing with _a_ doll, I
+should say. I found it more interesting to have lots of little ones, or
+of things that did instead of dolls--dressed-up chessmen did very well
+at one time--that I could make move about and act and be anything I
+wanted them to be, more easily than one or two big dolls.
+
+Still I always took care of Dollysweet. I never neglected her or let her
+get dirty and untidy, though in time, of course, her pink-and-white
+complexion faded into pallid yellow, and her bright hair grew dull, and,
+worst of all--after that I never could bear to look at her--one of her
+sky-blue eyes dropped, not out, but _into_ her hollow head.
+
+Poor old Dollysweet!
+
+The day after my third birthday grandmamma began to teach me to read.
+_I_ couldn't have remembered that it was that very day, but she has told
+me so. I had very short lessons, only a quarter of an hour, I think, but
+though she was very kind, she was very strict about my giving my
+attention while I was at them. She says that is the part that really
+matters with a very little child--the learning to give attention. Not
+that it would signify if the actual things learnt up to six or seven
+came to be forgotten--so long as a child knows how to learn.
+
+At first I liked my lessons very much, though I must have been a rather
+tiresome child to teach. For I would keep finding out likenesses in the
+letters, which I called 'little black things,' and I wouldn't try to
+learn their names. Grandmamma let me do this for a few days, as she
+thought it would help me to distinguish them, but when she found that
+every day I invented a new set of likenesses, she told me that wouldn't
+do.
+
+'You may have one likeness for each,' she said, 'but only if you really
+try to remember its name too.'
+
+And I knew, by the sound of her voice, that she meant what she said.
+
+So I set to work to fix which of the 'likes,' as I called them, I would
+keep.
+
+'A' had been already a house with a pointed roof, and a book standing
+open on its two sides, and a window with curtains drawn at the top, and
+the wood of the sash running across half-way, and a good many other
+things which you couldn't see any likeness to it in, I am sure. But just
+as I was staring at it again, I saw old Tanner, who lived in one of the
+cottages below our house, settling his double ladder against a wall.
+
+I screamed out with pleasure--
+
+'I'll have Tan's ladder,' I said, and so I did. 'A' was always Tan's
+ladder after that. And a year or two later, when I heard some one speak
+of the 'ladder of learning,' I felt quite sure it had something to do
+with the opened-out ladder with the bar across the middle.
+
+After all, I have had to get grandmamma's help for some of these baby
+memories. Still, as I _can_ remember the little events I have now
+written down, I suppose it is all right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ONE AND SEVEN
+
+
+I will go on now to the time I was about seven years old. 'Baby' stories
+are interesting to people who know the baby, or the person that once was
+the baby, but I scarcely think they are very interesting to people who
+have never seen you or never will, or, if they do, would not know it was
+you!
+
+All these years we had gone on quietly living at Windy Gap, without ever
+going away. Going away never came into my head, and if dear grandmamma
+sometimes wished for a little change--and, indeed, I am sure she must
+have done--she never spoke of it to me. Now and then I used to hear
+other children, for there were a few families living near us, whose
+little boys and girls I very occasionally played with, speak of going to
+the sea-side in the summer, or to stay with uncles and aunts or other
+relations in London in the winter, to see the pantomimes and the shops.
+But it never struck me that anything of that sort could come in my way,
+not more than it ever entered my imagination that I could become a
+princess or a gipsy or anything equally impossible.
+
+Happy children are made like that, I think, and a very good thing it is
+for them. And I was a very happy child.
+
+We had our troubles, troubles that even had she wished, grandmamma could
+not have kept from me. And I do not think she did wish it. She knew that
+though the _background_ of a child's life should be contented and happy,
+it would not be true teaching or true living to let it believe any life
+can be without troubles.
+
+One trouble was a bad illness I had when I was six--though this was
+really more of a trouble to granny and Kezia than to me. For I did not
+suffer much pain. Sometimes the illnesses that frighten children's
+friends the most do not hurt the little people themselves as much as
+less serious things.
+
+This illness came from a bad cold, and it _might_ have left me delicate
+for always, though happily it didn't. But it made granny anxious, and
+after I got better it was a long time before she could feel easy-minded
+about letting me go out without being tremendously wrapped up, and
+making sure which way the wind was, and a lot of things like that, which
+are rather teasing.
+
+I might not have given in as well as I did had it not happened that the
+winter which came after my illness was a terribly severe one, and my own
+sense--for even between six and seven children _can_ have some common
+sense--told me that nothing would be easier than to get a cough again if
+I didn't take care. So on the whole I was pretty good.
+
+But those months of anxiety and the great cold were very trying for
+grandmamma. Her hair got quite, _quite_ white during them.
+
+These severe winters do not come often at Middlemoor; not very often, at
+least. We had two of them during the time we lived there, 'year in and
+year out,' as Kezia called it. But between them we had much milder ones,
+one or two quite wonderfully mild, and others middling--nothing really
+to complain of. Still, a very tiny cottage house standing by itself is
+pretty cold during the best of winters, even though the walls were
+thick. And in wet or stormy days one does get tired of very small rooms
+and few of them.
+
+But the year that followed that bitter winter brought a pleasant little
+change into my life--the first variety of the kind that had come to me.
+I made real acquaintance at last with some other children.
+
+This was how it began.
+
+I was seven, a little past seven, at the time.
+
+One morning I had just finished my lessons, which of course took more
+than a quarter of an hour now, and was collecting my books together, to
+put them away, when I heard a knock at the front door.
+
+I was in the drawing-room--_generally_, especially in winter, I did my
+lessons in the dining-room. For we never had two fires at once, and for
+that reason we sat in the dining-room in the morning if it was cold,
+though granny was most particular always to have a fire in the
+drawing-room in the afternoon. I think now it was quite wonderful how
+she managed about things like that, never to fall into irregular or
+untidy ways, for as people grow old they find it difficult to be as
+active and energetic as is easy for younger ones. It was all for my
+sake, and every day I feel more and more grateful to her for it.
+
+Never once in my life do I remember going into the dining-room to dinner
+without first meeting grandmamma in the drawing-room, when a glance
+would show her if my face and hands had been freshly washed and my hair
+brushed and my dress tidy, and upstairs again would I be sent in a
+twinkling if any of these matters were amiss.
+
+But this morning I had had my lessons in the drawing-room; to begin
+with, it was not winter now, but spring, and not a cold spring either;
+and in the second place, Kezia had been having a baking of pastry and
+cakes in the dining-room oven, and granny knew my lessons would have
+fared badly if my attention had been disturbed every time the cakes had
+to be seen to.
+
+I was collecting my books, I said, to carry them into the other room,
+where there was a little shelf with a curtain in front on purpose for
+them, as we only kept our nicest books in the drawing-room, when this
+rat-a-tat knock came to the door.
+
+I was very surprised. It was so seldom any one came to the front door in
+the morning, and, indeed, not often in the afternoon either, and this
+knock sounded sharp and important somehow. Though I was still quite a
+little girl I knew it would vex grandmamma if I tried to peep out to see
+who it was--it was one of the things she would have said 'no lady should
+ever do'--and I could not bear her to think I ever forgot how even a
+very small lady should behave.
+
+The only thing I could do was to look out of the side window, not that I
+could see the door from there, but I had a good view of the road where
+it passed the short track, too rough to call a road, leading to our own
+little gate.
+
+No cart or carriage could come nearer than that point; the tradesmen
+from Middlemoor always stopped there and carried up our meat or bread or
+whatever it was--not very heavy basketfuls, I suspect--to the kitchen
+door, and I used to be very fond of standing at this window, watching
+the unpacking from the carts.
+
+There was no cart there to-day, but what _was_ there nearly took my
+breath away.
+
+'Oh, grandmamma,' I called out, quite forgetting that by this time Kezia
+must have opened the door; 'oh, grandmamma, do look at the lovely
+carriage and ponies.'
+
+Granny did not answer. She had not heard me, for she was in the
+dining-room, as I might have known. But I had got into the habit of
+calling to her whenever I was pleased or excited, and generally, somehow
+or other, she managed to hear. And I could not leave the window, I was
+so engrossed by what I saw.
+
+There was a girl in the carriage, to me she seemed a grown-up lady. She
+was sitting still, holding the reins. But I did not see the figure of
+another lady which by this time had got hidden by the house, as she
+followed the little groom whom she had sent on to ask if Mrs. Wingfield
+was at home, meaning at first, to wait till he came back. I heard her
+afterwards explaining to grandmamma that the boy was rather deaf and she
+was afraid he had not heard her distinctly, so she had come herself.
+
+And while I was still gazing at the carriage and the ponies, the
+drawing-room door, already a little ajar, was pushed wide open and I
+heard Kezia saying she would tell Mrs. Wingfield at once.
+
+'Mrs. Nestor; you heard my name?' said some one in a pleasant voice.
+
+I turned round.
+
+There stood a tall lady in a long dark green cloak, she had a hat on,
+not a bonnet, and I just thought of her as another lady, not troubling
+myself as to whether she was younger or older than the one in the
+carriage, though actually she was her mother.
+
+I was not shy. It sounds contradictory to say so, but still there is
+truth in it. I had seen too few people in my life to know anything about
+shyness. And all I ever had had to do with were kind and friendly. And I
+remembered 'my manners,' as old-fashioned folk say.
+
+I clambered down from the window-seat, and stroked my pinafore, which
+had got ruffled up, and came forward towards the lady, holding out my
+hand. I had no need to go far, for she had come straight in my
+direction.
+
+'Well, dear?' she said, and again I liked her voice, though I did not
+exactly think about it, 'and are you Mrs. Wingfield's little girl?'
+
+'My name is Helena Charlotte Naomi Wingfield,' I said, very gravely and
+distinctly, 'and grandmamma is Mrs. Wingfield.'
+
+Mrs. Nestor was smiling still more by this time, but she smiled in a
+nice way that did not at all give me any feeling that she was making fun
+of what I said.
+
+'And how old are you, my dear?--let me see, you have so many names!
+which are you called by, or have you any short name?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'No, only "girlie," and that is just for grandmamma to say. I am always
+called "Helena."'
+
+'It is a very pretty name,' said my new friend. 'And how old are you,
+Helena?'
+
+'I am past seven,' I said. 'My birthday comes in the spring, in March.
+Have you any little girls, and are any of them seven? I would like to
+know some little girls as big as me.'
+
+'I have lots,' said Mrs. Nestor. 'One of them is in the pony-carriage
+outside. I daresay you can see her from the window.'
+
+I think my face must have fallen.
+
+'Oh,' I said, disappointedly. 'She's a lady.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Mrs. Nestor, now laughing outright; 'if you knew her,
+or when you know her, as I hope you will soon, I'm afraid you will think
+her much more of a tomboy than a lady. Sharley is only eleven, though
+she is tall. Her name is Charlotte, like one of yours, but we call her
+Sharley; we spell it with an "S" to prevent people calling her
+"Charley," for she is boyish enough already, I am afraid. Then I have
+three girls younger--nine, six, and three, and two boys of----'
+
+I was _so_ interested--my eyes were very wide open, and I shouldn't
+wonder if my mouth was too--that for once in my life I was almost sorry
+to see grandmamma, who at that moment opened the door and came in.
+
+'I hope Helena has been a good hostess?' she said, after she had shaken
+hands with Mrs. Nestor, whom she had met before once or twice. 'We have
+been having a cake baking this morning, and I was just giving some
+directions about a special kind of gingerbread we want to try.'
+
+'I should apologise for coming in the morning,' said Mrs. Nestor, but
+grandmamma assured her it was quite right to have chosen the morning.
+'Helena and I go out in the afternoon whenever the weather is fine
+enough, and I should have been sorry to miss you. Now, my little girl,
+you may run off to Kezia. Say good-bye to Mrs. Nestor.'
+
+I felt very disappointed, but I was accustomed to obey at once. But Mrs.
+Nestor read the disappointment in my eyes: that was one of the nice
+things about her. She was so 'understanding.'
+
+She turned to grandmamma.
+
+'One of my daughters is in the pony-carriage,' she said. 'Would you
+allow Helena to go out to her? She would be pleased to see your garden,
+I am sure.'
+
+'Certainly,' said grandmamma. 'Put on your hat and jacket, Helena, and
+ask Miss'--she had caught sight of the girl from the window and saw that
+she was pretty big--'Miss Nestor to walk about with you a little.'
+
+I flew off--too excited to feel at all timid about making friends by
+myself.
+
+'Call her Sharley,' said Mrs. Nestor, as I left the room. 'She would not
+know herself by any other name.'
+
+In a minute or two I was running down the garden-path. When I found
+myself fairly out at the gate, and within a few steps of the girl, I
+think a feeling of shyness _did_ come over me, though I did not myself
+understand what it was. I hung back a little and began to wonder what I
+should say. I had so seldom spoken to a child belonging to my own rank
+in life. And I had not often spoken to any of the poorer children about,
+as there happened to be none in the cottages near us, and grandmamma was
+perhaps a little _too_ anxious about me, too afraid of my catching any
+childish illness. She says herself that she thinks she was. But of
+course I am now so strong and big that it makes it rather different.
+
+I had not much time left in which to grow shy, however. As soon as the
+girl saw that I was plainly coming towards her she sprang out of the
+carriage.
+
+'Has mother sent you to fetch me?' she said.
+
+I looked at her. Now that she was out of the carriage and standing, I
+could see that she was not as tall as grandmamma, or as her own mother,
+and that her frock was a good way off the ground. And her hair was
+hanging down her back. Still she seemed to me almost a grown-up lady.
+
+I am afraid her first impression of _me_ must have been that I was
+extremely stupid. For I went on staring at her for a moment or two
+before I answered. She was indeed opening her lips to repeat the
+question when I at last found my voice.
+
+'I don't know,' I said. And if she did not think me stupid before I
+spoke, she certainly must have done so when I did.
+
+'I don't know,' I repeated, considering over what her question exactly
+meant. 'No, I don't think it was fetching you. I was to ask you--would
+you like to walk round our garden? And p'raps--your mamma was going to
+tell me all your names, but grandmamma told me to run away. I'd like to
+know your sisters that are as little as me's names.'
+
+I remember exactly what I said, for Sharley has often told me since how
+difficult it was for her not to burst out laughing at the funny way I
+spoke. But tomboy though she was in some respects, she had a very tender
+heart, and like her mother she was quick at understanding. So she
+answered quite soberly--
+
+'Thank you. I should like very much to walk round your garden--though
+running would be even nicer. I'm not very fond of walking if I can run,
+and you have got such jolly steep paths and banks.'
+
+I eyed the steep paths doubtfully.
+
+'You hurt yourself a good deal if you run too fast down the paths,' I
+said. 'The stones are so sharp.'
+
+Sharley laughed.
+
+'You speak from experience,' she said. 'That grass bank would be lovely
+for tobogganing.'
+
+'I don't know what that is,' I replied.
+
+'We'll show you if you come to see us at home,' she said. 'But I suppose
+I'd better not try anything like that to-day. You want to know my
+sisters' names? They are Anna and Valetta and Baby----'
+
+'Never mind about Baby,' I interrupted, rather abruptly, I fear. 'How
+big is Anna, and--the other one?'
+
+Sharley stood still and looked me well over.
+
+'Do you really mean "big"?' she said, 'or "old"? Anna is nine and Val is
+six; but as for bigness--Anna is nearly as tall as I am, and Val is a
+good bit bigger than you.'
+
+I felt and looked nearly ready to cry.
+
+'And I'm past seven,' I said, 'I wish I wasn't so little. It's like
+being a baby, and I don't care for babies.'
+
+'Never mind,' replied Sharley consolingly, 'you needn't be at all
+babyish because you're little. One of our boys is very little, but he's
+not a bit of a baby. I'm sure Val will like to play with you, and so
+will Anna--and all of us, for that matter.'
+
+I began to think Sharley a very nice girl. I put my hand in hers
+confidingly.
+
+'I'd like to come,' I said, 'and I'd like to play that funny name down
+the grass-bank here, if you'll show me how.'
+
+'All right,' she said. 'We'll have to ask leave, I suppose. But you
+haven't told me your name yet. The children are sure to ask me.'
+
+I repeated it--or them--solemnly.
+
+'"Charlotte"--that's my name,' Sharley remarked.
+
+'I'm never called it,' I said. 'I'm always called Helena.'
+
+Sharley looked rather surprised.
+
+'Fancy!' she said. '_We_ all call each other by short names and
+nicknames and all kinds of absurd names. Anna is generally Nan, and the
+boys are Pert and Quick--at least those are the names that have lasted
+longest. I daresay it's partly because they are just a little like their
+real names--Percival and Quintin.'
+
+'What a great many of you there are!' I said, but Sharley took my remark
+in perfectly good part, even though I went on to add--'It's like the
+baker's children--I counted them once, but I couldn't get them right;
+sometimes they came to nine and sometimes to eleven.'
+
+'Do you mean the baker's on the way to High Middlemoor?' said Sharley.
+'Oh yes, it must be them--papa calls them the baker's dozen always. No,
+we're not as many as that. We are only seven--us four girls, and Pert
+and Quick, and Jerry, our big brother, who's at school. Dear me, it must
+be dull to be only one!'
+
+Just then we heard the voices of grandmamma and Sharley's mother coming
+towards us. And a minute or two later the pony-carriage drove away
+again, Sharley nodding back friendly farewells.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN
+
+
+I stood looking after it as long as it was in sight. I felt quite
+strange, almost a little dazed, as if I had more than I could manage to
+think over in my head. Grandmamma, who was standing behind me, put her
+hand on my shoulder.
+
+I looked up at her, and I saw that her face seemed pleased.
+
+'Is that a nice lady, grandmamma?' I said.
+
+I do not quite know why I asked about Sharley's mother in that way, for
+I felt sure she was nice. I think I wanted grandmamma to help me to
+arrange my ideas a little.
+
+'Very nice, dear,' she said. 'Did you not think she spoke very kindly?'
+
+'Yes, I did, grandmamma,' I replied. I had a rather 'old-fashioned' way
+of speaking sometimes, I think.
+
+'And her little girl--well, she is not a little girl, exactly, is
+she?--seems very bright and kind too,' grandmamma went on.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, but then I hesitated. Grandmamma wanted to find out
+what I was thinking.
+
+'You don't seem quite sure about it?' she said.
+
+'Yes, grandmamma. She is a very kind girl, but she made me feel funny.
+She has such a lot of brothers and sisters, and she says it must be so
+dull to be only one. Grandmamma, is it dull to be only one?'
+
+Grandmamma did not smile at my odd way of asking her what I could have
+told myself, better than any one else. A little sad look came over her
+face.
+
+'I hope not, dear,' she answered. 'My little girl does not find her life
+dull?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'I love you, grandmamma, and I love Kezia, but I don't know about "dull"
+and things like that. I think Sharley thinks I'm a very stupid little
+girl, grandmamma.'
+
+And all of a sudden, greatly to dear granny's surprise and still more to
+her distress, I burst into tears.
+
+She led me back into the house, and was very kind to me. But she did not
+say very much. She only told me that she was sure Sharley did not think
+anything but what was nice and friendly about me, and that I must not be
+a fanciful little woman. And then she sent me to Kezia, who had kept an
+odd corner of her pastry for me to make into stars and hearts and other
+shapes with her cutters, as I was very fond of doing. So that very soon
+I was quite bright and happy again.
+
+But in her heart granny was saying that it would be a very good thing
+for me to have some companions of my own age, to prevent my getting
+fanciful and unchildlike, and, worst of all, too much taken up with
+myself.
+
+A few days after that, grandmamma told me that the three Nestor girls
+were coming twice a week to read French with her. I think I have said
+already that grandmamma was very clever, very clever indeed, and that
+she knew several foreign languages. She had been a great deal in other
+countries when grandpapa was alive, and she could speak French
+beautifully. So I wasn't surprised, and only very pleased when she told
+me about Sharley and her sisters. For I was too little to understand
+what any one else would have known in a moment, that dear granny was
+going to do this to make a little more money. My illness and all the
+things she had got for me--even the having more fires--had cost a good
+deal that last winter, and she had asked the vicar of our village to let
+her know if he heard of any family wanting French or German lessons for
+their children.
+
+This was the reason of Mrs. Nestor's call, and it was because they were
+going to settle about the French lessons that grandmamma had sent me out
+of the room. It was not till long afterwards that I understood all about
+it.
+
+Just now I was very pleased.
+
+'Oh, how nice!' I said, 'and may I play with them after the lessons are
+done, do you think, grandmamma? And will they ask me to go to their
+house to tea sometimes? Sharley said they would--at least she nearly
+said it.'
+
+'I daresay you will go to their house some day. I think Mrs. Nestor is
+very kind, and I am sure she would ask you if she thought it would
+please you,' said grandmamma. But then she stopped a little. 'I want you
+to understand, Helena dear, that these children are coming here really
+to learn French. So you must not think about playing with them just at
+first, that must be as their mother likes.'
+
+Grandmamma did not say what she felt in her own mind--that she would not
+wish to seem to try to make acquaintance with the Nestors, who were very
+rich and important people, through giving lessons to their children. For
+she was proud in a right way--no, I won't call it proud--I think
+dignified is a better word.
+
+But Mrs. Nestor was too nice herself not to see at once the sort of
+person grandmamma was. She was almost _too_ delicate in her feelings,
+for she was so afraid of seeming to be in the least condescending or
+patronising to us, that she kept back from showing us as much kindness
+as she would have liked to do. So it never came about that we grew very
+intimate with the family at Moor Court--that was the name of their
+home--I really saw more of the three girls at our own little cottage
+than in their own grand house.
+
+But as I go on with my story you will see that there was a reason for my
+telling about them, and about how we came to know them, rather
+particularly.
+
+The French lessons began the next week. Sharley and her sisters used to
+come together, sometimes walking with a maid, sometimes driving over in
+a little pony-cart--not the beautiful carriage with the two ponies;
+that was their mother's--but what is called a governess-cart, in which
+they drove a fat old fellow called Bunch, too fat and lazy to be up to
+much mischief. When they drove over they brought a young groom with
+them, but their governess very seldom came. I think Mrs. Nestor thought
+it would be pleasanter for granny to give the lessons without a grown-up
+person being there, and Sharley said their governess used that time to
+give the two boys Latin lessons. Mrs. Nestor would have been very glad
+if grandmamma would have agreed to teach Pert and Quick French too, but
+granny did not think she could spare time for it, though a year or two
+later when Percival had gone to school she did let Quick join what we
+called the second class.
+
+I should have explained that though I could not read or write French at
+all well, I could speak it rather nicely, as grandmamma had taken great
+pains to accustom me to do so since I was quite little.
+
+I think she had a feeling that I might have to be a governess or
+something of the kind when I was grown-up, and that made her very
+anxious about my lessons from the beginning of them. And though things
+have turned out quite differently from that, I have always been _very_
+glad that I was well taught from the first. It is such a comfort to me
+now that I am really growing big to be able to show grandmamma that I am
+not far back for my age compared with other girls.
+
+Sharley was the first class all by herself, and Nan and Vallie were the
+second. I did not do any lessons with them, but after each class had had
+half an hour's teaching we had conversation for another half hour, and
+when the conversation time began I was always sent for. Grandmamma had
+asked Mrs. Nestor if she would like that, and Mrs. Nestor was very
+pleased.
+
+We had great fun at the 'conversation.' You can scarcely believe what
+comical things the little girls said when they first began to try to
+talk. Grandmamma sometimes laughed till the tears came into her eyes--I
+do love to see her laugh--and I laughed too, partly, I think, because
+she did, for the funny things they said did not seem quite so funny to
+me, of course, as to a big person.
+
+But altogether the French lessons were very nice and brought some
+variety into our lives. I think granny and I looked forward to them as
+much as the Nestor children did.
+
+Grandmamma's birthday happened to come about a fortnight after they
+began. I told Sharley about it one day when she was out in the garden
+with me, while her sisters were at their lesson. We used to do that way
+sometimes, only we had to promise to speak French all the time, so that
+I really had a little to do with teaching them as well as grandmamma,
+and to tease me, on these occasions Sharley would call me
+'mademoiselle,' and make Nan and Vallie do the same. They used in turn,
+you see, to be with me while Sharley was with granny.
+
+It was rather difficult to make her understand about grandmamma's
+birthday, I remember, for she could scarcely speak French at all then,
+and at last she burst out into English, for she got very interested
+about it.
+
+'I'll tell Mrs. Wingfield we have been talking English,' she said, 'and
+I'll tell her it was all my fault. But I must understand what you are
+saying.'
+
+'It's about grandmamma's birthday,' I said. 'I do so want to make a plan
+for it.'
+
+Sharley's eyes sparkled. She loved making plans, and so did Vallie, who
+was very quick and bright about everything, while Nan was rather a
+sleepy little girl, though exceedingly good-natured. I don't think I
+_ever_ knew her speak crossly.
+
+'I heard something about "fête,"' said Sharley, 'about fête and
+grandmamma. Why do you call her birthday her "fête"?'
+
+'I didn't,' I replied. '"Fête" doesn't generally mean birthday--it means
+something else, something about a saint's day. I said I wanted to
+"fêter" dear granny on her birthday, and I wondered what I could do.
+Last year I worked a little case in that stiff stuff with holes in, to
+keep stamps in, and Kezia made tea-cakes. But I can't think of anything
+I can work for her this year, and tea-cakes are only tea-cakes,' and I
+sighed.
+
+'Don't look so unhappy,' said Sharley, '_we'll_ plan. We're rather short
+of plans just now, and we always like to have some on hand for first
+thing in the morning--Val and I do at least. Nan never wakes up
+properly. Leave it to us, Helena, and the next time we come I'll tell
+you what we've thought of.'
+
+I had a good deal of faith in Sharley's cleverness in some things,
+already, though I can't say that it shone out in speaking French. So I
+promised to wait to see what she and Vallie thought of.
+
+When we went in we told grandmamma that we had been speaking English. I
+made it up into very good French, and Sharley said it, which pleased
+granny.
+
+'And what was it you were so eager about that you couldn't wait to say
+it, or hear it in French?' she asked Sharley.
+
+We had not expected this, and Sharley got rather red.
+
+'It's a secret,' she blurted out.
+
+Grandmamma looked just a little grave.
+
+'I am not very fond of secrets,' she said. 'And Helena has never had
+any.'
+
+'Oh yes, I have, grandmamma,' I said. I did not mean to contradict
+rudely, and I don't think it sounded like that, though it looks rather
+rude written down. 'I had one this time last year--don't you
+remember?--about your little stamp case.'
+
+Granny's face brightened up. It did not take very quick wits to put two
+and two together, and to guess from what I said that the secret had to
+do with her birthday. And Sharley was too anxious for grandmamma not to
+be vexed, to think about her having partly guessed the secret.
+
+'Ah, well!' said granny, 'I think I can trust you both.'
+
+'Yes, indeed, you may,' said Sharley. 'There's nothing about mischief
+in it, and the only secrets mother's ever been vexed with me about had
+to do with mischief.'
+
+'Sharley dressed up a pillow to tumble on Pert's head from the top of
+his door, once,' said Nan in her slow solemn voice, 'and he screamed and
+screamed.'
+
+'It was because he was such a boasty boy, about never being frightened,'
+said Sharley, getting rather red. 'But I never did it again. And this
+secret is quite, quite a different kind.'
+
+I felt very eager for the next French day, as we called them, to come,
+to hear what Sharley had thought of. I told Kezia about it, and then I
+almost wished I had not, for she said she did not know that grandmamma
+would be pleased at my talking about her birthday and 'such like' to
+strangers.
+
+I think Kezia forgot sometimes how very little a girl I still was. I did
+not understand what she meant, and all I could say was that the three
+girls were not strangers to me. Afterwards I saw what Kezia was thinking
+of, she was afraid of the Nestors sending some present to grandmamma,
+and that, she would not have liked.
+
+But Mrs. Nestor was too good and sensible for anything of that kind.
+
+When Sharley and Nan and Vallie came the next time, I ran to meet them,
+full of anxiety to know if they had made any 'plans.' They all looked
+very important, but rather to my disappointment the first thing Sharley
+said to me was--
+
+'Don't ask us yet, Helena. We've promised mother not to tell. She's
+going to come to fetch us to-day, and she's made a lovely plan, but
+first she has to speak about it to your grandmamma.'
+
+'Then it won't be a surprise,' I began, but Vallie answered before I had
+time to say any more.
+
+'Oh yes, it will. There's to be a surprise mixed up with it, and we're
+to settle that part of it all ourselves--you and us.'
+
+I found it very difficult to keep to speaking French that day, I can
+tell you. And it seemed as if the hour and a half of lessons spread out
+to twice as much before Mrs. Nestor at last came.
+
+We all ran out into the garden while she went in to talk to grandmamma.
+They were very kind and did not keep us long waiting, and soon we heard
+granny calling us from the window. Her face was quite pleased and
+smiling. I saw in a moment that she was not going to say I should not
+have spoken of her birthday to the little girls.
+
+'Mrs. Nestor is thinking of a great treat for you--and for me, Helena,'
+she said. 'And she and I want you to know about it at once, so that you
+may all talk about it together and enjoy it beforehand as well. Some
+little bird, it seems, has flown over to Moor Court and told that next
+Tuesday week will be your old granny's birthday, and Mrs. Nestor has
+invited us to spend the afternoon of it there. You will like that, will
+you not?'
+
+I looked up at grandmamma, feeling quite strange. You will hardly
+believe that I had never in my life paid even a visit of this simple
+kind.
+
+'Yes,' I whispered, feeling myself getting pink all over, as I knew that
+Mrs. Nestor was looking at me, 'yes, thank you.'
+
+Then dear little Vallie came close up to me, and said in a low voice--
+
+'Now we can settle about the surprise. Come quick, Helena--the surprise
+will be the fun.'
+
+And when I found myself alone with the others again, all three of them,
+even Nan, chattering at once, I soon found my own tongue again, and the
+strange, unreal sort of feeling went off. They were very simple unspoilt
+children, though their parents were rich and what I used to call
+'grand.' It is quite a mistake to think that the children who live in
+very large houses and have ponies and lots of servants and everything
+they can want are sure to be spoilt. Very often it is quite the
+opposite. For, if their parents are good and wise, they are _extra_
+careful not to spoil them, knowing that the sort of trials that cannot
+be kept away from poorer children, and which are a training in
+themselves in some ways, are not likely to come to _their_ children. I
+even think now, looking back, that there was really more risk of being
+spoilt, for me myself, than for Sharley and her brothers and sisters.
+
+Being allowed to be selfish is the real beginning and end of being
+spoilt, I am quite sure.
+
+The 'surprise' they had thought of was a very simple one, and one that I
+knew grandmamma would like. It was that we should have tea out-of-doors,
+in an arbour where there was a table and seats all round. And we were to
+decorate it with flowers, and a wicker arm-chair was to be brought out
+for granny, and wreathed with greenery and flowers, to show that she was
+queen of the feast.
+
+'So it will be a "fête," after all, Helena,' said Sharley.
+
+They were nearly as eager and pleased about it as I was myself, for
+they had already learnt to love my grandmamma very dearly.
+
+'There's only one thing,' we kept saying to each other every time we met
+before the great day, 'it _mustn't_ rain. Oh, do let us _hope_ it will
+be fine,--beautifully fine.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A HAPPY DAY
+
+
+And it _was_ a fine day! Things after all do not always go wrong in this
+world, though some people are fond of talking as if they did.
+
+That day, that happy birthday, stands out in my mind so clearly that I
+think I must write a good deal about it, even though to most children
+there would not seem anything very remarkable to tell. But to me it was
+like a peep into fairyland. To begin with, it was the very first time in
+my life that I had ever paid a visit of any kind except once or twice
+when I had had tea in rather a dull fashion at the vicarage, where there
+were no children and no one who understood much about them. Miss Linden,
+the vicar's sister, a very old-maid sort of lady, though she meant to be
+kind, had my tea put out in a corner of the room by myself, while she
+and grandmamma had theirs in a regular drawing-room way. They had
+muffins, I remember, and Miss Linden thought muffins not good for little
+girls, and my bread-and-butter was cut thicker than I ever had it at the
+cottage, and the slice of currant-bread was not nearly as good as
+Kezia's home-made cake--even the plainest kind.
+
+No, my remembrances of going out to tea at the vicarage were not very
+enlivening.
+
+How different the visit to Moor Court was!
+
+It began--the pleasure of it at least to me--the first thing when I
+awoke that morning, and saw without getting out of bed--for my room was
+so little that I could not help seeing straight out of the window, and I
+never had the blinds drawn down--that it was a perfectly lovely morning.
+It was the sort of morning that gives almost certain promise of a
+beautiful day.
+
+In our country, because of the hills, you see, it isn't always easy to
+tell beforehand what the weather is going to be, unless you really study
+it. But even while I was quite a child I had learnt to know the signs of
+it very well. I knew about the lights and shadows coming over the hills,
+the gray look at a certain side, the way the sun set, and lots of things
+of that kind which told me a good deal that a stranger would never have
+thought of. I knew there were some kinds of bright mornings which were
+really less hopeful than the dull and gloomy ones, but there was nothing
+of that sort to-day, so I curled myself round in bed again with a
+delightful feeling that there was nothing to be feared from the weather.
+
+I did not dare to get up till I heard Kezia's knock at the door--for
+that was one of grandmamma's rules, and though she had not many rules,
+those there _were_ had to be obeyed, I can assure you.
+
+I must have fallen asleep again, for the next thing I remember was
+hearing grandmamma's voice, and there she was, standing beside my bed.
+
+'Oh, granny!' I called out, 'what a shame for you to be the one to wake
+me on _your_ birthday.'
+
+'No, dear,' said grandmamma, 'it is quite right. Kezia hasn't been yet,
+it is just about her time.'
+
+I sprang up and ran to the table, where I had put my little present for
+grandmamma the night before, for of course I had got a present for her
+all of my own, besides having planned the treat with the Nestors.
+
+I remember what my present was that year. It was a little box for
+holding buttons, which I had bought at the village shop, and it had a
+picture of the old, old Abbey Church at Middlemoor on its lid.
+Grandmamma has that button-box still, I saw it in her work-basket only
+yesterday. I was very proud of it, for it was the first year I had saved
+pennies enough to be able to _buy_ something instead of working a
+present for grandmamma.
+
+She did seem so pleased with it. I remember now the look in her eyes as
+she stooped to kiss me. Then she turned and lifted something which I had
+not noticed from a chair standing near.
+
+'This is my present for my little girl,' she said, and though I was
+inclined to say that it was not fair for her to give me presents on her
+birthday, I was so delighted with what she held out for me to see that I
+really could scarcely speak.
+
+What do you think it was?
+
+A new frock--the prettiest by far I had ever had. The stuff was white,
+embroidered by grandmamma herself in sky-blue, in such a pretty pattern.
+She had sat up at night to do it after I was in bed.
+
+'Oh, grandmamma,' I said, 'how beautiful it is! Oh, may I--' but then I
+stopped short--'may I wear it to-day?' was what I was going to say. But,
+'oh no,' I went on, 'it might get dirtied.'
+
+'You are to wear it to-day, dear,' said grandmamma, 'if that is what you
+were going to say, so you needn't spoil your pleasure by being afraid of
+its getting dirtied; it will wash perfectly well, for I steeped the silk
+I worked it in, in salt and water before using it, to make the colour
+quite fast. I will leave it here on the back of the chair, and when the
+time comes for you to get ready I will dress you myself, to be sure that
+it is all quite right.'
+
+I kept peeping at my pretty frock all the time I was dressing; the sight
+of it seemed the one thing wanting to complete my happiness. For though
+Sharley and Nan and Vallie were never too grandly dressed, their things
+were always fresh and pretty, and I _had_ been thinking to myself that
+none of my summer frocks were quite as nice or new-looking as theirs.
+
+And to-day, though only May, was really summer.
+
+Grandmamma wouldn't let me do very much that morning, as she did not
+want me to be tired for the afternoon.
+
+'Is it a very long walk to Moor Court?' I asked her.
+
+Grandmamma smiled, a little funnily, I thought afterwards.
+
+'Yes,' she said, 'it is between two and three miles.'
+
+'Then we must set off early,' I said, 'so as not to have to go too fast
+and be tired when we get there. I don't mind for coming back about being
+tired; there'll be nothing to do then but go to bed, it'll all be over!'
+and I gave a little sigh, 'but I don't want to think about its being
+over yet.'
+
+'We must start at half-past two,' said grandmamma. 'That will be time
+enough.'
+
+Long before half-past two, as you can fancy, I was quite ready. My frock
+fitted perfectly, and even Kezia, who was rather afraid of praising my
+appearance for fear of making me conceited, said with a smile that I did
+look very nice.
+
+I quite thought so myself, but I really think all my pride was for
+grandmamma's frock.
+
+I settled myself in the window-seat looking towards the road, as I have
+explained.
+
+'Stay there quietly,' grandmamma said to me, 'till I call you.'
+
+And again I noticed a sort of little twinkle in her eyes, of which
+before long I understood the reason. I must have been sitting there a
+quarter of an hour at least when I thought I heard wheels coming. It
+wasn't the usual time for the butcher or baker, or any of the
+cart-people, as I called them, and wheels of any other kind seldom came
+our way. So I looked out with great curiosity to see what it could be.
+
+To my astonishment, there came trotting along the short bit of level
+road leading to our own steep path the two ponies and the pretty
+pony-carriage that had so delighted me the first time I saw them.
+
+Sharley was driving, the little groom behind her. But this time my first
+feeling was certainly not one of pleasure. On the contrary I started in
+dismay.
+
+'Oh dear,' I thought, 'there's something the matter, and Sharley has
+come herself to say we can't go.'
+
+I rushed upstairs, the tears already very near my eyes.
+
+'Granny, granny,' I exclaimed, 'the pony-carriage has come and Sharley's
+there! I'm sure she's come to tell us we can't go.'
+
+My voice broke down before I could say anything more. Grandmamma was
+coming out of her room quite ready, and even in the middle of my fright
+I could not help thinking how nice she looked in her pretty dark gray
+dress and black lace cloak, which, though she had had it a great, great
+many years, always seemed to me rich and grand enough for the Queen
+herself to wear.
+
+'My dear little girl,' she said, 'you really must not get into the way
+of fancying misfortunes before they come. It is a very bad habit. Why
+shouldn't Sharley have come to fetch us? Don't you think it would be
+nicer to drive to Moor Court than to walk all that way along the dusty
+road?'
+
+'Oh, granny,' I cried, and my tears, if they were there, vanished away
+like magic. 'Oh, granny, that would be too lovely. But are you quite
+sure?'
+
+'Quite,' said grandmamma, 'I promised to keep it a secret to please
+Sharley, as she is so fond of surprises. Run down now to meet her and
+tell her we are quite ready.'
+
+How perfectly delightful that drive was! I sat with my back to the
+ponies, on the low seat opposite grandmamma and Sharley.
+
+'Vallie wanted to come too,' said Sharley, 'but that seat isn't very
+comfortable for two.'
+
+It was very comfortable for one, at least I found it so. I had hardly
+ever been in a carriage before, and Sharley drove so nice and fast; she
+was very proud of being allowed to drive the two ponies. But they were
+so good, they seemed, like every one and everything else, determined to
+make that day a perfectly happy one.
+
+When we got to the lodge of Moor Court Sharley began to drive more
+slowly, and looked about as if expecting some one.
+
+'The others said they would come to meet us,' she explained, 'and
+sometimes Pert is rather naughty about startling the ponies, even though
+he can't bear being startled himself. Oh, there they are!'
+
+As she spoke the four figures appeared at a turn in the drive. Nan and
+Vallie in the pretty pink frocks, which no longer made me feel
+discontented with my own, as nothing could be prettier, I was quite
+firmly convinced, than grandmamma's beautiful work, which Sharley had
+already admired in her own pleasant and hearty way.
+
+We two got out of the pony-carriage, leaving grandmamma to be driven up
+to the house by the groom, the little girls saying that their mother was
+waiting for her on the lawn in front.
+
+I had never seen the boys before. Percival seemed to me quite big,
+though he was one year younger than Sharley and smaller for his age.
+Quintin was more like Nan, slow and solemn and rather fat, so his
+nickname of Quick certainly didn't suit him very well. But they were
+both very nice and kind to me. I am quite sure Sharley had talked to
+them well about it before I came, though it was easy to see that when
+Pert was not on his best behaviour he was very fond of playing tricks.
+
+I felt very happy, and not at all strange or frightened as I walked
+along between Sharley and Val, each holding one of my hands and
+chattering away about all we were going to do, though I had a queer,
+rather nice feeling as if I must be in a dream, it all seemed so pretty
+and wonderful.
+
+And indeed many people, far better able to judge of such things than I,
+think that Moor Court is one of the loveliest places in England. I did
+not see much of the inside of the house that day, though I learnt to
+know it well afterwards. It was very old and very large, and everything
+about it seemed to me quite perfect. But on this day we amused ourselves
+almost altogether out of doors.
+
+[Illustration: Grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily.--p. 67.]
+
+The children had already done a good deal to the arbour where we were to
+have tea; but grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily in gathering branches of ivy and
+other pretty green things to twine about it, with here and there a bunch
+of flowers, which Mrs. Nestor had told the gardener we were to have.
+
+Vallie was very anxious to make a wreath for grandmamma, but though I
+thought it a very nice idea, I was afraid it would look rather funny,
+and when Sharley reminded us that wreaths couldn't be worn very well
+above a bonnet, we quite gave it up.
+
+But we did make the table look very pretty, and at last everything was
+ready, except the tea itself and the hot cakes, which of course the
+servants would bring at the very end.
+
+By the time we had finished it was nearly four o'clock, and we were not
+to have tea till half-past, so there was time for a nice game of
+hide-and-seek among the trees. I don't think I ever ran so fast or
+laughed so much in my life. They were all such good-natured children,
+even if they did have little quarrels they were soon over, and then I
+think they were all especially kind to me. I suppose they were sorry for
+me in some ways that did not come into my own mind at all.
+
+Then we all went to the house to be made tidy for tea, and in spite of
+what grandmamma had said about not minding if my frock was dirtied I was
+very pleased to find that it was perfectly clean.
+
+Grandmamma and Mrs. Nestor were waiting for us in the drawing-room; and
+we all went back to the arbour together, Sharley walking first with
+grandmamma, which was quite right, as the plan about tea had been all
+her own.
+
+Grandmamma _was_ pleased. I think she liked to see how fond these
+children had already got to be of her, though perhaps it would have been
+as well if Quick had not informed us in the middle of tea that he liked
+her a great, great deal better than his real grandmamma, whose nose was
+very big and her hair quite black.
+
+'But she's very kind to us too,' said Sharley, 'only I don't think she
+cares much for little boys.'
+
+'Nor for tomboys either,' said Pert, who did love teasing Sharley
+whenever he had a chance.
+
+'Jerry's her favourite,' said Nan.
+
+'And I think he deserves to be,' said her mother.
+
+'I wish he was here to-day, I know that,' said Sharley. 'It's such a
+long time to the holidays, and it won't be so nice this year when they
+do come, as most likely a boy's coming with Jerry.'
+
+'Two boys,' corrected Pert, 'their name's Vandeleur, and they're his
+greatest friends.'
+
+'Vandeleur?' said grandmamma. 'I wonder if----' and then she stopped. 'I
+have relations of that name,' she said, 'but I don't suppose they belong
+to the same family.'
+
+'It is not a common name,' said Mrs. Nestor. 'But these boys are, I
+believe, orphans. Both their father and mother are dead, are they not,
+Sharley? Sharley knows the most about them,' she went on, 'for Gerard
+and she write long letters to each other always, and she hears all about
+his school friends and everything he is interested in.'
+
+'Yes,' said Sharley, 'they are orphans. They have an old aunt or some
+relation who takes care of them. But I think they are rather lonely.
+They often spend all their holidays at school--that was why Jerry
+thought it would be nice to invite them here. I daresay it will be very
+nice for _them_, but _I_ think it will quite spoil the holidays for
+_us_.'
+
+'Come, Sharley,' said her mother, 'you must not be selfish.'
+
+'What are the boys' Christian names?' asked grandmamma.
+
+'Harry and Lindsay,' Sharley replied.
+
+Grandmamma shook her head.
+
+'No,' she said, as if thinking aloud, 'I never heard those names in the
+branch of the Vandeleurs I am connected with.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+'WAVING VIEW'
+
+
+I was only eight years old at the time we made the acquaintance of the
+family at Moor Court. It may seem strange and unlikely that I should
+remember so clearly all that happened when we first got to know them,
+but even though I was so young at the time I _do_ recollect all about it
+very well.
+
+For it was so new to me that it made a great impression.
+
+Till then I had never had any real companions; as I have said already, I
+had scarcely ever had a meal out of our own house. It was like the
+opening of a new world to me.
+
+But I have asked grandmamma about a few things which she remembers more
+exactly than I do. Especially about the Vandeleur boys, I mean about
+what was said of them. But for things that happened afterwards I daresay
+I should never have thought of this again, though grandmamma did not
+forget about it. She told me over quite lately everything that had
+passed at that birthday tea.
+
+The months, and indeed the years that followed that first happy day at
+Moor Court seem to me now, on looking back upon them, a good deal mixed
+up together--till, that is to say, a change, a melancholy one for me,
+came over my happy friendship with the Nestor children.
+
+This change, however, did not come for fully three years, and these
+three years were very bright and sunny ones. Sharley and her sisters
+continued all that time to be my grandmamma's pupils--winter and summer,
+all the year round, except for some weeks of holiday at Christmas, and a
+rather longer time in the autumn, when the Nestors generally went to the
+sea-side for a change; unless the weather was terribly bad or stormy,
+twice a week they either walked over with a maid, or the governess-cart
+drawn by the fat pony made its appearance at the end of our path.
+Sometimes the little groom went on into the village if there were any
+messages, sometimes if it was cold he drove as far as the farm at the
+foot of the hill, where it was arranged that he could 'put up' for an
+hour or two, sometimes in warm summer days the pony-cart just waited
+where it was.
+
+Often, once a fortnight or so at least, in the fine season, I made one
+of the party on the little girls' return home. How we all managed to
+squeeze into the cart, or how old Bunch managed to take us all home
+without coming to grief on the way, I am sure I can't say.
+
+I only know we _did_ manage it, and so did he. For he is still alive and
+well, and no doubt 'ready to tell the story,' if he could speak.
+
+We never seemed to be ill in those days. The Nestor children were no
+doubt very strong, and I grew much stronger. Then Middlemoor is such a
+splendidly healthy place.
+
+I have some misty recollections of Nan and Vallie having the measles,
+and a doubt arising as to whether I had not got it too. But if it was
+measles it did not seem worse than a cold, and we were soon all out and
+about again, as merry as ever.
+
+And grandmamma seemed to grow younger during those years. Her mind was
+more at rest for the time, for the steady payment she received for the
+girls' French lessons made all the difference in our little income,
+between being comfortable, with a small extra in case of need, and
+being only _just_ able to make both ends meet with a great deal of
+tugging. And grandmamma was happy about taking the money, for it was
+well earned; Sharley and the others made such good progress in French
+and after a little while in German also, even though Nan was by nature
+rather slow and Vallie dreadfully flighty, and not at all good at giving
+her attention.
+
+But she _was_ so sweet! I never saw any one so sweet as Vallie, when she
+had been found fault with and was sorry; the tears used to come up into
+her big brown eyes very slowly and stay there, making them look like
+velvety pansies with dewdrops in them.
+
+Somehow Sharley always seemed the _most_ my friend, though she was a
+good deal older. Perhaps it was through having known her the first, and
+partly, I daresay, because in _some_ ways I was old for my age.
+
+The big brother Gerard came home for his holidays three times a year. He
+was a very nice boy, I am sure, but I did not get to know him well, and
+I had rather a grudge at him. For when he was at Moor Court I seemed to
+see so much less of Sharley. It wasn't her fault. She was not a
+changeable girl at all, but Jerry had always been accustomed to having
+her a great deal with him in his holidays, as she took pains to explain
+to me. So of course if she had given him up for me she _would_ have been
+changeable.
+
+She did her best, I will say that for her. She told Gerard all about me,
+and he was very nice to me. But it was in rather a big boy way, which I
+did not understand. I thought he was treating me like a baby when _he_
+only meant to be kind and brotherly. I remember one day being so
+offended at his lifting me over a stile, that it was all I could do not
+to burst into tears!
+
+So it came to be the way among us, without anything being actually said
+about it, that during Jerry's holidays I was mostly with the four
+others--Nan and Vallie and the two younger boys.
+
+And I daresay it was a good thing for me. For none of them were at all
+old for their age; they were just hearty, healthy, regular _children_,
+living in the present and very happy in it. And if I had been altogether
+with the older ones I might have grown more and more 'old-fashioned.'
+For Gerard was a very serious and thoughtful boy, and Sharley, though in
+outside ways she seemed rather wild and hoydenish, was really very
+clever and very wise, to be only the age she was. I never quite took in
+that side of her character till I saw her with Jerry--she seemed quite
+transformed.
+
+One thing came to pass, however, which was a great pleasure to the two
+people it chiefly concerned and to Sharley. As for me, I don't think I
+gave much attention to it, and I am not sure that if it had at all
+interfered with my own life I should not have been rather jealous!
+
+This was a close friendship between Gerard Nestor and grandmamma.
+
+And it is necessary to speak about it because it was the beginning of
+things which brought about great changes.
+
+Grandmamma loved boys and she was one of those women that are well
+fitted to manage them. She used to say that till she got _me_, she had
+never had anything to do with _girls_. For her own children were both
+boys--papa was the elder, and the other was a dear boy who died when he
+was only sixteen, and whom of course I had never seen, though grandmamma
+liked me to speak of him as 'Uncle Guy.' Then, too, she had had some
+charge of her nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.
+
+Her friendship with Jerry came about by his reading French and German
+with her in the holidays. He had never been out of England and he was
+anxious to improve his 'foreign languages,' as he was backward in them,
+besides having a very bad accent indeed.
+
+Granny has often said she never had so attentive a pupil, and it was in
+talking with him--for 'conversation' was a very important part of her
+teaching--that she got to know so much of Gerard, and he so much of her.
+
+She used to tell him stories of her own boys, Paul--Paul was papa--and
+Guy, in French, and he had to answer questions about the stories to show
+that he had understood her. And in these stories the name of Cosmo
+Vandeleur came to be mentioned.
+
+The first time or so he heard it I don't think Jerry noticed it. But one
+day it struck him just as it had struck grandmamma that first day--the
+birthday-tea day--at Moor Court.
+
+'Vandeleur,' said Jerry--it was one day when he had come over for his
+lesson, and as it was raining and I could not go out, I was sitting in
+the window making a cloak or something for my doll. 'Vandeleur,' he
+repeated. 'I wonder, Mrs. Wingfield, if your nephew is any relation to
+some boys at my school. They are great chums of mine--they were to have
+come home with me for the summer holidays'--it was the Christmas
+holidays now,--'but their relations had settled something else for them
+and wouldn't let them come. I think their relations must be rather
+horrid.'
+
+'I remember Sharley--I think it was Sharley--speaking of them,' said
+grandmamma. 'They are orphans, are they not?'
+
+'Yes,' said Gerard. 'They've got guardians--one of them is quite an old
+woman. Her name is Lady Bridget Woodstone. They don't care very much for
+her. I think she must be very crabbed.'
+
+'I do not think they can be related to my nephew,' said grandmamma. 'I
+never heard of any orphan boys in his family, and I never heard of Lady
+Bridget Woodstone. But Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur is only my nephew, because
+his mother was my husband's sister--so of course he _may_ have relations
+I know nothing of. He always seemed to me very near when he was a boy,
+because he was so often with us.'
+
+She sighed a little as she finished speaking. Thinking of Mr. Vandeleur
+made her sad. It did seem so strange that he had never written all these
+years.
+
+And Jerry was very quick as well as thoughtful. He saw that for some
+reason the mention of the name made her sad, so he said no more about
+the Vandeleur boys. Long afterwards he told us that when he went back to
+school he did ask Harry and Lindsay Vandeleur if they had any relation
+called Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur, but at that time they told him they did not
+know. They were quite under the care of old Lady Bridget, and she was
+not a bit like granny. She was the sort of old lady who treats children
+as if they had no sense at all; she never told the boys anything about
+themselves or their family, and when they spent the holidays with her,
+she always had a tutor for them--the strictest she could find, so that
+they almost liked better to stay on at school.
+
+The three years I have been writing about must have passed quickly to
+grandmamma. They were so peaceful, and after we got to know the Nestors,
+much less lonely. And grandmamma says that it is quite wonderful how
+fast time goes once one begins to grow old. She does not seem to mind
+it. She is so very good--I cannot help saying this, for my own story
+would not be true if I did not keep saying _how_ good she is.
+But I must take care not to let her see the places where I say it.
+She loves me as dearly as she can, I know--and others beside me.
+But still I try not to be selfish and to remember that when the
+dreadful--dreadful-for-_me_--day comes that she must leave me, it will
+only for _her_ be the going where she must often, often have longed to
+be--the country 'across the river,' where her very dearest have been
+watching for her for so long.
+
+To me those three years seem like one bright summer. Of course we had
+winters in them too, but there is a feeling of sunshine all over them.
+And, actually speaking, those winters were very mild ones--nothing like
+the occasional severe ones, of another of which I shall soon have to
+tell.
+
+I was so well too--growing so strong--stronger by far than grandmamma
+had ever hoped to see me. And as I grew strong I seemed to take in the
+delightfulness of it, though as a very little girl I had not often
+_complained_ of feeling weak and tired, for I did not understand the
+difference.
+
+Now I must tell about the change that came to the Nestors--a sad change
+for me, for though at first it seemed worse for them, in the end I
+really think it brought more trouble to granny and me than to our dear
+friends themselves.
+
+It was one day in the autumn, early in October I think, that the first
+beginning of the cloud came. Gerard had not long been back at school and
+we were just settling down into our regular ways again.
+
+'The girls are late this morning,' said grandmamma. 'You see nothing of
+them from your watch-tower, do you, Helena?'
+
+Granny always called the window-seat in our tiny drawing-room my
+'watch-tower.' I had very long sight and I had found out that there was
+a bit of the road from Moor Court where I could see the pony-cart
+passing, like a little dark speck, before it got hidden again among the
+trees. After that open bit I could not see it again at all till it was
+quite close to our own road, as we called it--I mean the steep bit of
+rough cart-track leading to our little garden-gate.
+
+I was already crouched up in my pet place, when grandmamma called out to
+me. She was in the dining-room, but the doors were open.
+
+'No, grandmamma,' I replied. 'I don't see them at all. And I am sure
+they haven't passed Waving View in the last quarter-of-an-hour, for I
+have been here all that time.'
+
+'Waving View,' I must explain, was the name we had given to the short
+stretch of road I have just spoken of, because we used to wave
+handkerchiefs to each other--I at my watch-tower and Sharley from the
+pony-cart, at that point.
+
+Grandmamma came into the drawing-room a moment or two after that and
+stood behind me, looking out at the window.
+
+[Illustration: 'I do wonder why they are so late.'--P. 82.]
+
+'Not that I could see them coming,' she said, 'till they are up the hill
+and close to us. But I do wonder why they are so late--half an hour
+late,' and she glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. 'I hope
+there is nothing the matter.'
+
+I looked at her as she said that, for I felt rather surprised. It was
+never granny's way to expect trouble before it comes. I saw that her
+face was rather anxious. But just as I was going to speak, to say some
+little word about its not being likely that anything was wrong, I gave
+one other glance towards Waving View. This time I was not disappointed.
+
+'Oh, granny,' I exclaimed, 'there they are! I am sure it is them--I know
+the way they jog along so well--only, grandmamma, they are not waving?'
+
+And I think the anxious look must have come into my own face, for I
+remember saying, almost in a whisper, 'I do hope there is nothing the
+matter'--granny's very words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES
+
+
+Grandmamma was the one to reassure me.
+
+'I scarcely think there can be anything wrong, as they are coming,' she
+said. 'You did not wave to them, either?'
+
+'No,' I said, 'I _did_ wave, but I got tired of it. And it's always they
+who do it first. You see there's no use doing it except at that place.'
+
+'Well, they will be here directly, and then I must give them a little
+scolding for being so unpunctual,' said grandmamma, cheerfully.
+
+But that little scolding was never given.
+
+When the governess-cart stopped at our path there were only two figures
+in it--no, three, I should say, for there was the groom, and the two
+others were Nan and Vallie--Sharley was not there.
+
+I ran out to meet them.
+
+'Is Sharley ill?' I called out before I got to them.
+
+Nan shook her head.
+
+'No,' she was beginning, but Vallie, who was much quicker, took the
+words out of her mouth--that was a way of Vallie's, and sometimes it
+used to make Nan rather vexed. But this morning she did not seem to
+notice it; she just shut up her lips again and stood silent with a very
+grave expression, while Vallie hurried on--
+
+'Sharley's not ill, but mother kept her at home, and we're late because
+we went first to the telegraph office at Yukes'--Yukes is a _very_ tiny
+village half a mile on the other side of Moor Court, where there is a
+telegraph office. 'Father's ill, Helena, and I'm afraid he's very ill,
+for as soon as Dr. Cobbe saw him this morning he said he must telegraph
+for another doctor to London.'
+
+'Oh, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I am so sorry,' and turning round at the sound
+of footsteps behind me I saw grandmamma, who had followed me out of the
+house. 'Granny,' I said, 'there _is_ something the matter. Their father
+is very ill,' and I repeated what Vallie had just said.
+
+'I am very grieved to hear it,' said grandmamma. Afterwards she told me
+she had had a sort of presentiment that something was the matter. 'I am
+so sorry for your mother,' she went on. 'I wonder if I can be of use to
+her in any way.'
+
+Then Nan spoke, in her slow but very exact way.
+
+'Mother said,' she began, 'would you come to be with her this afternoon
+late, when the London doctor comes? She will send the brougham and it
+will bring you back again, if you would be so very kind. Mother is so
+afraid what the London doctor will say,' and poor Nan looked as if it
+was very difficult for her not to cry.
+
+'Certainly, I will come,' said grandmamma at once. 'Ask Mrs. Nestor to
+send for me as soon as you get home if she would like to have me. I
+suppose--' she went on, hesitating a little, 'you don't know what is the
+matter with your father?'
+
+'It is a sort of a cold that's got very bad,' said Vallie, 'it hurts him
+to breathe, and in the night he was nearly choking.'
+
+Granny looked grave at this. She knew that Mr. Nestor had not been
+strong for some time, and he was a very active man, who looked after
+everything on his property himself, and hunted a good deal, and thought
+nothing about taking care of himself. He was a nice kind man, and all
+his people were very fond of him.
+
+But she tried to cheer up the little girls and gave them their lesson as
+usual. It was much better to do so than to let them feel too unhappy.
+And I tried to be very kind and bright too--I saw that grandmamma wanted
+me to be the same way to them that she was.
+
+But after they were gone she spoke to me pretty openly about her fears
+for Mr. Nestor.
+
+'Dr. Cobbe would not have sent for a London doctor without good cause,'
+she said. 'All will depend on his opinion. It is possible that I may
+have to stay all night, Helena dear. You will not mind if I do?'
+
+I _did_ mind, very much. But I tried to say I wouldn't. Still, I felt
+pretty miserable when the Moor Court carriage came to fetch grandmamma,
+and she drove away, leaving me for the first time in my life, or rather
+the first time I could remember, alone with Kezia.
+
+Kezia was very kind. She offered me to come into the kitchen and make
+cakes. But I was past eleven now--that is very different from being only
+eight. I did not care much for making cakes--I never have cared about
+cooking as some girls do, though I know it is a very good thing to
+understand about it, and grandmamma says I am to go through a regular
+course of it when I get to be seventeen or eighteen. But I knew Kezia's
+cakes were much better than any I could make, so I thanked her, but said
+no--I would rather read or sew.
+
+I had my tea all alone in the dining-room. Kezia was always so
+respectful about that sort of thing. Though she had been a nurse when I
+was only a tiny baby, she never forgot, as some old servants do, to
+treat me quite like a young lady, now I was growing older. She brought
+in my tea and set it all out just as carefully as when grandmamma was
+there, even more carefully in some ways, for she had made some little
+scones that I was very fond of, and she had got out some strawberry jam.
+
+But I could not help feeling melancholy. I know it is wrong to believe
+in presentiments, or at least to think much about them, though
+_sometimes_ even very wise people like grandmamma cannot help believing
+in them a little. But I really do think that there are times in one's
+life when a sort of sadness about the future does seem _meant_.
+
+And I had been so happy for so long. And troubles must come.
+
+I said that over to myself as I sat alone after tea, and then all of a
+sudden it struck me that I was very selfish. This trouble was far, far
+worse for the Nestors than for me. Possibly by this time the London
+doctor had had to tell them that their father would never get better,
+and here was I thinking more, I am afraid, of the dulness of being one
+night without dear granny than of the sorrow that was perhaps coming
+over Sharley and the others of being without their father for always.
+
+For I scarcely think my 'presentiments' would have troubled me much
+except for the being alone and missing granny so.
+
+I made up my mind to be sensible and not fanciful. I got out what I
+called my 'secret work,' which was at that time a footstool I was
+embroidering for grandmamma's next birthday, and I did a good bit of it.
+That made me feel rather better, and when my bedtime came it was nice to
+think I had nothing to do but to go to sleep and stay asleep to make
+to-morrow morning come quickly.
+
+I fell asleep almost at once. But when I woke rather with a start--and I
+could not tell what had awakened me--it was still quite, quite dark,
+certainly not to-morrow morning.
+
+'Oh, dear!' I thought, 'what a bother! Here I am as wide awake as
+anything, and I so seldom wake at all. Just this night when I wanted to
+sleep straight through.'
+
+I lay still. Suddenly I heard some faint sounds. Some one was moving
+about downstairs. Could it be Kezia up still? It must be very
+late--quite the middle of the night, I fancied.
+
+The sounds went on--doors shutting softly, then a slight creak on the
+stairs, as if some one were coming up slowly. I was not exactly
+frightened. I never thought of burglars--I don't think there has been a
+burglary at Middlemoor within the memory of man--but my heart did beat
+rather faster than usual and I listened, straining my ears and scarcely
+daring to breathe.
+
+Then at last the steps stopped at my door, and some one began to turn
+the handle. I _almost_ screamed. But--in one instant came the dear
+voice--
+
+'Is my darling awake?' so gently, it was scarcely above a whisper.
+
+'Oh, granny, dear, dear granny, is it you?' I said, and every bit of me,
+heart and ears and everything, seemed to give one throb of delight. I
+shall never forget it. It was like the day I ran into her arms down the
+steep garden-path.
+
+'Did I startle you?' she went on. 'Generally you sleep so soundly that I
+hoped I would not awake you.'
+
+'I was awake, dear grandmamma,' I said, 'and oh, I am so glad you have
+come home.'
+
+I clung to her as if I would never let her go, and then she told me the
+news from Moor Court. The London doctor had spoken gravely, but still
+hopefully. With great care, the greatest care, he trusted Mr. Nestor
+would quite recover.
+
+'So I came home to my little girl,' said grandmamma, 'though I have
+promised poor Mrs. Nestor to go to her again to-morrow.'
+
+'I don't mind anything if you are here at night,' I said, with a sigh of
+comfort.
+
+And then she kissed me again and I turned round and was asleep in five
+minutes, and when I woke the next time it _was_ morning; the sunshine
+was streaming in at the window.
+
+There were some weeks after that of a good deal of anxiety about Mr.
+Nestor, though he went on pretty well. Grandmamma went over every two or
+three days, just to cheer Mrs. Nestor a little--not that there was
+really anything to do, for they had trained nurses, and everything money
+could get. The girls went on with their lessons as usual, which was of
+course much better for them. But in those few weeks Sharley almost
+seemed to grow into a woman.
+
+I felt rather 'left behind' by her, for I was only eleven, and as soon
+as the first great anxiety about Mr. Nestor was over I did not think
+very much more about it. Nor did Nan and Vallie. We were quite satisfied
+that he would soon be well again, and that everything would go on as
+usual. Only Sharley looked grave.
+
+At last the blow fell. It was a very bad blow to me, and in one
+way--which, however, I did not understand till some time later--even
+worse to grandmamma, though she said nothing to hint at such a thing in
+the least.
+
+And it was a blow to the Nestor children, for they loved their home and
+their life dearly, and had no wish for any change.
+
+This was it. They were all to go abroad almost immediately, for the
+whole winter at any rate. The doctors were perfectly certain that it was
+necessary for Mr. Nestor, and he would not hear of going alone, and Mrs.
+Nestor could not bear the idea of a separation from her children.
+Besides--they were very rich, there were no difficulties in the way of
+their travelling most comfortably, and having everything they could want
+wherever they went to.
+
+To me it was the greatest trouble I had ever known--and I really do
+think the little girls--Sharley too--minded it more on my account than
+on any other.
+
+But it had to be.
+
+Almost before we had quite taken in that it was really going to be, they
+were off--everything packed up, a courier engaged--rooms secured at the
+best hotel in the place they were going to--for all these things can be
+done in no time when people have lots of money, grandmamma said--and
+they were gone! Moor Court shut up and deserted, except for the few
+servants left in charge, to keep it clean and in good order.
+
+I only went there once all that winter, and I never went again. I could
+not bear it. For in among the trees where we played I came upon the
+traces of our last paper-chase, and passing the side of the house it was
+even worse. For the schoolrooms and play-room were in that wing, and
+above them the nurseries, where Vallie used to rub her little nose
+against the panes when she was shut up with one of her bad colds. Some
+cleaning was going on, for it was like Longfellow's poem exactly--
+
+  'I saw the nursery windows
+    Wide open to the air,
+  But the faces of the children,
+    They were no longer there.'
+
+I just squeezed grandmamma's hand without speaking, and we turned away.
+
+It _is_ true that troubles do not often come alone. That winter was one
+of the very severe ones I have spoken of, that come now and then in that
+part of Middleshire.
+
+For the Nestors' sake it made us all the more glad that they were safely
+away from weather which, in his delicate state, would very probably have
+killed their father. I think this was our very first thought when the
+snow began to fall, only two or three weeks after they left, and went on
+falling till the roads were almost impassable, and remained lying for I
+am afraid to say how long, so intense was the frost that set in.
+
+I thought it rather good fun just at the beginning, and wished I could
+learn to skate. Grandmamma did not seem to care about my doing so, which
+I was rather surprised at, as she had often told me stories of how fond
+she was of skating when she was young, and how clever papa and Uncle Guy
+were at it.
+
+She said I had no one to teach me, and when I told her that I was sure
+Tom Linden, a nephew of the vicar's who was staying with his uncle and
+aunt just then, would help me, she found some other objection. Tom was a
+very stupid, very good-natured boy. I had got to know him a little at
+the Nestors. He was slow and heavy and rather fat. I tried to make
+granny laugh by saying he would be a good buffer to fall upon. I saw she
+was looking grave, and I felt a little cross at her not wanting me to
+skate, and I persisted about it.
+
+'Do let me, grandmamma,' I said. 'I can order a pair of skates at
+Barridge's. They don't keep the best kind in stock, but I know they can
+get them.'
+
+'No, my dear,' said grandmamma at last, very decidedly. 'I am not at all
+sure that it would be nice for you--it would have been different if the
+Nestors had been here. And besides, there are several things you need to
+have bought for you much more than skates. You must have extra warm
+clothing this winter.'
+
+She did not say right out that she did not know where the money was to
+come from for my wants--as for her own, when did the darling ever think
+of _them_?--but she gave a little sigh, and the thought did come into my
+head for a moment--was grandmamma troubled about money? But it did not
+stay there. We had been so comfortable the last few years that I had
+really thought less about being poor than when I was quite little.
+
+And other things made me forget about it. For a very few days after
+that, most unfortunately, I got ill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TWO LETTERS
+
+
+It was only a bad cold. Except for having to stay in the house, I would
+not have minded it very much, for after the first few days, when I was
+feverish and miserable, I did not feel very bad. And like a child, I
+thought every day that I should be all right the next.
+
+I daresay I should have got over it much quicker if the weather had not
+been so severe. But it was really awfully cold. Even my own sense told
+me it would be mad to think of going out. So I got fidgety and
+discontented, and made myself look worse than I really was.
+
+And for the very first time in my life there seemed to come a little
+cloud, a little coldness, between dear grandmamma and me. Speaking about
+it since then, _she_ says it was not all my fault, but _I_ think it was.
+I was selfish and thoughtless. She was dull and low-spirited, and I had
+never seen her like that before. And I did not know all the reasons
+there were for her being so, and I felt a kind of irritation at it. Even
+when she tried, as she often and often did, to throw it off and cheer me
+up in some little way by telling me stories, or proposing some new game,
+or new fancy-work, I would not meet her half-way, but would answer
+pettishly that I was tired of all those things. And I was vexed at
+several little changes in our way of living. All that winter we sat in
+the dining-room, and never had a fire in the drawing-room, and our food
+was plainer than I ever remembered it. Granny used to have special
+things for me--beef-tea and beaten-up eggs and port-wine--but I hated
+having them all alone and seeing her eating scarcely anything.
+
+'I don't want these messy things as if I was really ill,' I said. 'Why
+don't we have nice little dinners and teas as we used?'
+
+Grandmamma never answered these questions plainly; she would make some
+little excuse about not feeling hungry in frosty weather, or that the
+tradespeople did not like sending often. But once or twice I caught her
+looking at me when she did not know I saw her, and then there was
+something in her eyes which made me think I was a horridly selfish
+child. And yet I did not _mean_ to be. I really did not understand, and
+it was rather trying to be cooped up for so long, in a room scarcely
+bigger than a cupboard, after my free open life of the last three years
+or so.
+
+Dr. Cobbe came once or twice at the beginning of my cold and looked
+rather grave. Then he did not come again for two or three weeks--I think
+he had told grandmamma to let him know if I got worse.
+
+And one day when I had really made myself feverish by my fidgety
+grumbling, and then being sorry and crying, which brought on a fit of
+coughing, grandmamma got so unhappy that she tucked me up on the sofa by
+the fire, and went off herself, though it was late in the afternoon, to
+fetch him herself. She would not let Kezia go because she wanted to
+speak to him alone; I did not know it at the time, but I remember waking
+up and hearing voices near me, and there were the doctor and grandmamma.
+She was in her indoors dress just as usual, for me not to guess she had
+been out.
+
+I sat up, feeling much the better for my sleep. Dr. Cobbe laughed and
+joked--that was his way--he listened to my breathing and pommelled me
+and told me I was a little humbug. Then he went off into Kezia's
+kitchen, where there _had_ to be a tiny fire, with grandmamma, and a few
+minutes later I heard him saying good-bye.
+
+Grandmamma came back to me looking happier than for some time past. The
+doctor, she has told me since, really did assure her that there was
+nothing serious the matter with me, that I was a growing child and must
+be well fed and kept cheerful, as I was inclined to be nervous and was
+not exactly robust.
+
+And the relief to grandmamma was great. That evening she was more like
+her old self than she had been for long, even though I daresay she was
+awake half the night thinking over the doctor's advice, and wondering
+what more she _could_ do to get enough money to give me all I needed.
+
+For some of her money-matters had gone wrong. That I did not know till
+long afterwards. It was just about the time of Mr. Nestor's illness, and
+it was not till the Moor Court family had left that she found out the
+worst of it--that for two or three years _at least_ we should be thirty
+or forty pounds a year poorer than we had been.
+
+It _was_ hard on her--coming at the very same time as the extra money
+for the lessons left off! And the severe winter and my cold all added to
+it. It even made it more difficult for her to hear of other pupils, or
+to get any orders for her beautiful fancy-work. No visitors would come
+to Middlemoor _this_ winter, though when it was mild they sometimes did.
+
+Still, from the day of Dr. Cobbe's visit things improved a little--for
+the time at least. And in the end it was a good thing that grandmamma
+was not tempted to try her eyes with any embroidery again, as she really
+might have made herself blind. It had been such a blessing that she did
+not need to do it during the years she gave lessons to Sharley and her
+sisters.
+
+I went on getting better pretty steadily, especially once I was allowed
+to go out a little, though, as it was a very cold spring, it was only
+for some time _very_ little, just an hour or so in the best part of the
+day. And grandmamma followed Dr. Cobbe's advice, though I never shall
+understand how she managed to do so. She was so determined to be
+cheerful that when I look back upon it now it almost makes me cry. I had
+all the nourishing things to eat that it was possible to get, and how
+thoughtless and ungrateful I was! My appetite was not very good, and I
+remember actually grumbling at having to take beef-tea, and beaten-up
+eggs, and things like that at odd times. I scarcely like to say it, but
+in my heart I do not believe grandmamma had enough to eat that winter.
+
+About Easter--or rather at the time for the big school Easter holidays,
+which does not always match real Easter--we had a pleasant surprise. At
+least it was a pleasant surprise for grandmamma--I don't know that I
+cared about it particularly, and I certainly little thought what would
+come of it!
+
+One afternoon Gerard Nestor walked in.
+
+Granny's face quite lighted up, and for a moment or two I felt very
+excited.
+
+'Have you all come home?' I exclaimed. 'I haven't had a letter from
+Sharley for ever so long--perhaps--perhaps she meant to surprise me,' I
+had been going to say, but something in Jerry's face stopped me. He
+looked rather grave; not that he was ever anything but quiet.
+
+'No,' he said, 'I only wish they _were_ all back, or likely to come. I'm
+afraid there's no chance of it. The doctors out there won't hear of it
+this year at all. Just when father was hoping to arrange for coming back
+soon, they found out something or other unsatisfactory about him, and
+now it is settled that he must stay out of England another whole year at
+least. They are speaking of Algeria or Egypt for next winter.'
+
+My face fell. I was on the point of crying. Gerard looked very
+sympathising.
+
+'I did not myself mind it so much till I came down here,' he said. 'But
+it is so lonely and dull at Moor Court. I hope you will let me come here
+a great deal, Mrs. Wingfield. I mean to work hard at my foreign
+languages these holidays--it will give me something to do. You see it
+wasn't worth while my going out to Hyères for only three weeks, and I
+hoped even they might be coming back. So I asked to come down here. I
+didn't think it could be so dull.'
+
+'You are all alone at home?' said grandmamma. 'Yes, it must be very
+lonely. I shall be delighted to read with you as much as you like. I am
+not very busy.'
+
+'Thank you,' said Gerard. 'Well, I only hope you won't have too much of
+me. May I stay to tea to-day?'
+
+'Certainly,' said grandmamma. But I noticed--I don't think Gerard
+did--that her face had grown rather anxious-looking as he spoke. 'If
+you like,' she went on, 'we can glance over your books, some of them are
+still here, and settle on a little work at once.'
+
+'All right,' said he. But then he added, rather abruptly, 'You are not
+looking well, Mrs. Wingfield? I think you have got thinner. And Helena
+looks rather white, though she has not grown much.'
+
+I felt vexed at his saying I had not grown much.
+
+'It's no wonder I am white,' I said in a surly tone. 'I have been mewed
+up in the house almost ever since Sharley and all of them went away.'
+
+And then grandmamma explained about my having been ill.
+
+'I'm very sorry,' said Jerry, 'but you look worse than Helena, Mrs.
+Wingfield.'
+
+I felt crosser and crosser. I fancied he meant to reproach me with
+grandmamma's looking ill, even though it made me uneasy too. I glanced
+at her--a faint pink flush had come over her face at his words.
+
+'_I_ don't think granny looks ill at all,' I said.
+
+'No, indeed, I am very well,' she said, with a smile.
+
+Gerard said no more, but I know he thought me a selfish spoilt child.
+And from that moment he set himself to watch grandmamma and to find out
+if anything was really the matter.
+
+He _did_ find out, and that pretty quickly, I fancy, that we were much
+poorer. But it was very difficult for him to do anything to help
+grandmamma. She was so dignified, and in some ways reserved. She got a
+letter from Mrs. Nestor a few days later, thanking her for reading with
+Jerry again, and saying that of course the lessons must be arranged
+about as before. And it vexed her a very little. (She has told me about
+it since.) Perhaps she was feeling unusually sensitive and depressed
+just then. But however that may have been, she wrote a letter to Mrs.
+Nestor, which made her really _afraid_ of offering to pay. It was not as
+if there was time for a good many lessons, granny wrote--would not Mrs.
+Nestor let her render this very small service as a friend?
+
+And Jerry did not know what he _could_ do. It was not the season for
+game, except rabbits--and he did send rabbits two or three times--and I
+know now that he scarcely dared to stay to tea, or _not_ to stay, for if
+he refused granny seemed hurt.
+
+On the whole, nice as he was, it was almost a relief when he went away
+back to school.
+
+Still things were not so bad as in winter. I was really all right
+again, and a little money come in to grandmamma about May or June that
+she had not dared to hope for. We got on pretty well that summer.
+
+None of the Nestors came to Moor Court at all. Gerard joined them for
+the long holidays in Switzerland. Mrs. Nestor wrote now and then to
+granny, and Sharley to me, but of course there was not the least hint of
+what Gerard had told them. I think they believed and hoped he had
+exaggerated it--he was the sort of boy to fancy things worse than they
+were if he cared about people, I think.
+
+And so it got on to be the early autumn again. I think it was about the
+middle of September when the first beginning of the great change in our
+lives came.
+
+It was cold already, and the weather prophets were talking of another
+severe winter. Grandmamma watched the signs of it anxiously. She kept
+comparing it with the same time last year till I got quite tired of the
+subject.
+
+'Really, grandmamma,' I said one morning, 'what does it matter? If it is
+very cold we must have big fires and keep ourselves warm. And one thing
+I know--I am not going to be shut up again like last winter. I am going
+to get skates and have some fun as soon as ever the frost comes.'
+
+I said it half jokingly, but still I was ready to be cross too. I had
+not improved in some ways since I was ill. I was less thoughtful for
+grandmamma and quite annoyed if she did not do exactly what I wanted, or
+if she seemed interested in anything but me. In short, I was very
+spoilt.
+
+She did not answer me about the skates, for at that moment Kezia brought
+in the letters. It was not by any means every morning that we got any,
+and it was always rather an excitement when we saw the postman turning
+up our path.
+
+That morning there were two letters. One was for me from Sharley. I knew
+at once it was from her by the foreign stamp and the thin paper
+envelope, even before I looked at the writing. I was so pleased that I
+rushed off with it to my favourite window-seat, without noticing
+grandmamma, who had quietly taken her own letter from the little tray
+Kezia handed it to her on and was examining it in a half-puzzled way. I
+remembered afterwards catching a glimpse of the expression on her face,
+but at the moment I gave no thought to it.
+
+There was nothing _very_ particular in Sharley's letter. It was very
+affectionate--full of longings to be coming home again, even though she
+allowed that their present life was very bright and interesting. I was
+just laughing at a description of Pert and Quick going to market on
+their own account, and how they bargained with the old peasant women,
+when a slight sound--_was_ it a sound or only a sort of feeling in the
+air?--made me look up from the open sheet before me, and glance over at
+grandmamma.
+
+For a moment I felt quite frightened. She was leaning back in her chair,
+looking very white, and I could almost have thought she was fainting,
+except that her lips were moving as if she were speaking softly to
+herself.
+
+I flew across the room to her.
+
+'Granny,' I said, '_dear_ granny, what is it? Are you ill--is anything
+the matter?'
+
+Just at first, I think, I forgot about the letter lying on her lap--but
+before she spoke she touched it with her fingers.
+
+'I am only a little startled, dear child,' she said, 'startled and----'
+I could not catch the other word she said, she spoke it so softly, but I
+think it was 'thankful.' 'No, there is nothing wrong, but you will
+understand my feeling rather upset when I tell you that this letter is
+from Cosmo--you know whom I mean, Helena, Cosmo Vandeleur, my nephew,
+who has not written to me all these years.'
+
+At once I was full of interest, not unmixed--and I think it was
+natural--with some indignation.
+
+'So he is alive and well, I suppose?' I said, rather bitterly. 'Well,
+granny, I hope you will not trouble about him any more. He must be a
+horrid man, after all your kindness to him when he was a boy, never to
+have written or seemed to care if you were alive or dead.'
+
+'No, dear,' said grandmamma, whose colour was returning, though her
+voice still sounded weak and tremulous--'no, dear. You must not think of
+him in that way. Careless he has certainly been, but he has not lost his
+affection for me. I will explain it all to you soon, but I must think it
+over first. I feel still so upset, I can scarcely take it in.'
+
+She stopped, and her breath seemed to come in gasps. I was not a stupid
+child, and I had plenty of common sense.
+
+'Granny, dear,' I said, 'don't try to talk any more just now. I will
+call Kezia, and she must give you some water, or tea, or something. And
+I won't call Mr. Vandeleur horrid if it vexes you.'
+
+Kezia knew how to take care of grandmamma, though it was very, very
+seldom she was ever faint or nervous or anything of that kind.
+
+And something told me that the best _I_ could do was to leave dear
+granny alone for a little with the faithful servant who had shared her
+joys and sorrows for so long.
+
+So I took my own letter--Sharley's letter I mean, and ran upstairs to
+fetch my hat and jacket.
+
+'I'm going out for a little, grandmamma,' I said, putting my head in
+again for half a second at the drawing-room door as I passed. 'It isn't
+cold this morning, and I've got a long letter from Sharley to read over
+and over again.'
+
+'Take care of yourself, darling,' said granny, and as I shut the door I
+heard her say to Kezia, 'dear child--she has such tact and
+thoughtfulness for her age. It is for her I am so thankful, Kezia.'
+
+I was pleased to be praised. I have always loved praise--too much, I am
+afraid. But my conscience told me I had _not_ been thoughtful for
+grandmamma lately, not as thoughtful as I might have been certainly.
+This feeling troubled me on one side, and on the other I was dying with
+curiosity to know what it was granny was thankful about. The mere fact
+of a letter having come from that 'horrid, selfish, ungrateful man,' as
+I still called him to myself, though I would not speak of him so to
+grandmamma, could not be anything to be so thankful about--at least not
+to be thankful for _me_. What could it be? What had he written to say?
+
+I am afraid that Sharley's letter scarcely had justice done to it the
+second time I read it through--between every line would come up the
+thought of what grandmamma had said, and the wondering what she could
+mean. And besides that, the uncomfortable feeling that I was not as good
+as she thought me--that I did not deserve all the love and anxiety she
+lavished on me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A GREAT CHANGE
+
+
+Perhaps here it will be best for me to tell straight off what the
+contents of Mr. Vandeleur's letter were. Not, I mean, to go into all as
+to when and how grandmamma told me about it, with 'she said's' and 'I
+said's.' Besides, it would not be quite correct to tell it that way, for
+as a matter of fact I did not understand everything _then_ as I do now
+that I am several years older, and it would be difficult not to mix up
+what I have since come to know with the ideas I then had--ideas which
+were in some ways mistaken and childish.
+
+First of all, how do you think Cousin Cosmo, as I was told to call him,
+had come to write again after all those years of silence? What had put
+it into his head?
+
+The explanation is rather curious. It all came from Gerard Nestor's
+being at Moor Court that Easter, and feeling so sorry for grandmamma
+and so sure that she was in trouble.
+
+I have told, as we knew afterwards, that he had written to his people,
+but that grandmamma's way of answering made them think, and hope, that
+he had fancied more than was really the matter, and besides it was
+difficult for the Nestors, who were not _relations_, to do anything to
+help grandmamma, unless she had in some way given them her confidence.
+At that time they were hoping to come home the following spring, and
+then, probably, Mrs. Nestor would have found out more.
+
+But when Gerard first went back to school his head was full of it. He
+had not been _told_ anything, it was only his own suspicions, so there
+was no harm in his speaking of it, as he did, though quite privately, to
+his great friend, Harry Vandeleur.
+
+And Harry gave him some confidences in return. Lady Bridget Woodstone,
+the old lady who was guardian to him and his brother, had lately
+died--the boys had spent their last holidays at school, but a new
+guardian had now appeared on the scene. This was a cousin of theirs
+whom, till then, they had never heard of, and this cousin was no other
+than grandmamma's nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.
+
+Gerard quite started when he heard the name, which he remembered quite
+well. Harry said that Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur was grave and quiet, he and
+Lindsay felt rather afraid of him, but they would know better what sort
+of person he was when they had spent the holidays with him.
+
+'We are to go to his house, or at least to a house he has got in Devon,
+near the sea-side, next August,' he told Gerard, and he promised that he
+would ask his guardian if he had any relation called Mrs. Wingfield, and
+if he found it was the same, he would tell him what Gerard had said, and
+how all these years she had been hoping to hear from him. For granny had
+told Gerard almost as much as she had told me of how strange it was that
+'Cosmo' never wrote.
+
+Well now you--by 'you' of course I mean whoever reads this story, if
+ever any one does--you begin to see how it came about. Harry Vandeleur
+_did_ tell his guardian about us, or about grandmamma, and found out
+that she _was_ his aunt. Mr. Vandeleur was very much startled, Harry
+said, to hear about how very differently she was living now, and he
+wrote down the address and told Harry he would make further enquiries.
+
+That was all Harry knew, for Mr. Vandeleur was very reserved, and Harry
+and Lindsay did not feel as if they knew him any better after the
+holidays than before. Mrs. Vandeleur was very ill, though they thought
+she would have liked to be kind; they were always being told not to make
+a noise, and so they stayed out-of-doors as much as they could. It was
+rather dull (_very_ dull, I should think), and they hoped they would not
+spend their next holidays there; they would almost rather stay at
+school.
+
+It was August or September when Mr. Vandeleur heard about grandmamma. He
+did not at once write to her; he made enquiries of the lawyer who had
+for many years managed, grandpapa's and papa's affairs, and he found it
+was only too true, that granny was _very_ badly off. But even then he
+did not write immediately, for Mrs. Vandeleur got worse and for a little
+while they were afraid she was going to die.
+
+He told granny this in his letter, but went on to say that Mrs.
+Vandeleur was better, and the doctors hoped she might be moved home to
+their house in London after the new year. In the meantime he was in
+great difficulty what to do, he had to be in London a good deal, and it
+was a pity to shut up the house, as they had made it all very nice, and
+they had good servants. And even when Mrs. Vandeleur was much better
+she must not be troubled about housekeeping or anything for a long time,
+and besides this, there was a new responsibility upon him, which he
+would tell granny about afterwards. He meant the care of the two boys,
+but he did not speak of them then.
+
+Some part of this, grandmamma told me that very evening; she also told
+me how sorry her nephew was about his long silence, though, as I think I
+said before, he _had_ written and got no answer,--a letter which she had
+never received.
+
+Here I find I must change my plan a little after all, and go into
+conversation again. For as I am writing there comes back to me one part
+of our talk that evening so clearly, that I think I can remember almost
+every word.
+
+We had got as far as grandmamma telling me most of what I have now
+written down, but still I did not see why the letter had so upset her or
+why she had whispered something to herself about being 'thankful.'
+
+'Well,' I said, 'I am glad he has written if it pleases you, grandmamma.
+But I don't think I want ever to see him.'
+
+'You must not be prejudiced, Helena dear,' she answered. 'I think it
+very likely you will see him, and before very long. I have not yet told
+you what he proposes. He wants us to go to--to pay him a long visit in
+London. He says I should be a very great help to him and Agnes--Agnes is
+his wife--as I could take charge of things for her.'
+
+'Of course you would be a great help,' I said. 'But I think it is rather
+cool of him to expect you to give up your own home and go off there just
+to be of use to them.'
+
+Grandmamma sighed. She did not want to tell me too much of her
+increasing anxiety about money, and yet without doing so it was
+difficult for her to make me understand how really kind Mr. Vandeleur's
+proposal was, and how it had not come a day too soon.
+
+'There are more reasons than that for my accepting his invitation,' she
+said. 'It will be of advantage to us in many ways not to spend the
+coming winter here, but in a warm, large house. If we had weather like
+last year I should dread it very much. London is on the whole very
+healthy in winter, in spite of the fogs. And you are growing old enough
+to take in new ideas, Helena, and to benefit by seeing something more of
+life.'
+
+I felt very strange, almost giddy, with the thought of such a change.
+
+'Do you really mean, grandmamma,' I said, 'that--that you are thinking
+of going there _soon_?'
+
+'Very soon,' she answered, 'almost at once. It may get cold and wintry
+here any day, and besides that, my nephew is very anxious to settle his
+own plans as quickly as possible.'
+
+I said nothing for a minute or two. In my heart I was not at all sorry
+at the prospect of a winter in London, even though I naturally shrank
+from leaving dear old Windy Gap, the only home I had ever known. But the
+sort of spoilt way I had got into kept me from expressing the pleasure I
+felt--that one side of me felt, anyway.
+
+'I don't believe he cares about us,' I said at last rather grumpily. 'I
+am sure he is a very selfish man.'
+
+Grandmamma looked distressed, but she was wise, too. She saw I was
+really inclined to be 'naughty' about it.
+
+'Helena, my dearest child,' she said, and though she spoke most kindly I
+heard by her voice that she would be firm, 'you must not yield to
+prejudice, and you must trust me. This invitation is the very best thing
+that could have come to us at present, and I am deeply grateful for it.
+It is rather startling, I know, but there should be a good deal of
+pleasure for you in our new prospects. And I am sure you will see this
+in a day or two. Now go to bed, my darling. To-morrow we shall have a
+great deal to talk over, and you must keep well and strong so as to be
+able to help me.'
+
+She kissed me tenderly, and I whispered 'Good-night, dear grandmamma,'
+gently and affectionately.
+
+But as soon as I got upstairs and was alone in my own little room, I
+burst into tears. I daresay it was only natural. Still, I see now that
+my feelings were not altogether what they should have been. There was a
+great deal of selfishness and spoiltness mixed up with them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that evening I have rather a confused remembrance of the next two
+or three weeks. Things seemed to hurry on in a bewildering way, and of
+course it was all the more bewildering to me, as I had never known any
+change or uprooting of the kind in my life.
+
+Grandmamma was exceedingly busy. She had to write very often to Mr.
+Vandeleur, and he replied in a most business-like way, generally, I
+think, by return. It was no longer a great event for the postman to be
+seen turning up our path, and as well as letters he sometimes now
+brought parcels.
+
+For grandmamma was determined that we should both look nice when we
+first went to London to live in her nephew's big house, where there were
+so many servants.
+
+'We must do him credit,' she said to me, with a smile. I understood what
+she meant, and I had a feeling of pride about it, too, and I was very
+pleased to have some new dresses and hats and other things. But with me
+there was no good feeling to my cousin mixed up in all this. I now know
+that there was reason for grandmamma's wish to gratify him; he behaved
+most generously and thoughtfully about everything, sending her more than
+sufficient money for all we needed, and doing it in such a nice
+way--just as a son who had grown rich might take pleasure in helping a
+mother to whom he owed more than mere money could ever repay.
+
+But though grandmamma read out to me bits of his letters in which he was
+always repeating how grateful he was to her for coming to his aid in his
+difficulties, she did not tell me the whole particulars of her
+arrangements with him. He would not have liked it, and I was really too
+young to have been told all these money-matters.
+
+I did notice that there was never any mention of me in what she read to
+me. And now I know that Mr. Vandeleur did _not_ particularly rejoice at
+the prospect of my living with them too. He had proposed that I should
+be sent to some very good school, for he knew nothing of children,
+especially of little girls. I think he believed they were even more
+tiresome and mischievous and bothering in every way than boys.
+
+Grandmamma would not listen for an instant to this proposal. Her first
+and greatest duty in life was her granddaughter, 'Paul's little girl,'
+and she would do _anything_ rather than be separated from me, especially
+as I was delicate and required care. In reality I was not nearly as
+delicate as she thought. But I daresay it did not add to my cousin's
+wish to have me in his house to hear that I was considered so.
+
+Among the other things that grandmamma had to arrange about was what to
+do with Windy Gap. In her heart I believe she thought it very unlikely
+that it would ever be our home again, but she did not say anything of
+this kind to me. She went off one day to Mr. Timbs to ask him to try to
+let it as it was, with our furniture in. He promised to do his best, but
+did not think it likely it would let in the winter.
+
+'And by the spring we shall be coming back again,' I said, when granny
+told me this. I had not gone with her to Mr. Timbs; she had made some
+little excuse for not taking me.
+
+To this she did not reply, and I thought no more about it, but I was
+glad to hear that Kezia was to stay on in the cottage to keep it all
+aired and in nice order. And I said to her secretly that if granny and I
+were not happy in Chichester Square--that was the name of the gloomy,
+rather old-fashioned square, filled with handsome gloomy houses, where
+Mr. Vandeleur lived--it was nice to feel that we had only to drive to
+the station and get into the train and be 'home' again in four or five
+hours.
+
+Kezia smiled, though I think in her heart she was much more inclined to
+cry, and said she hoped to hear of our being very happy indeed in
+London, though of course she would look forward to seeing us again.
+
+I shall never forget the day we left our dear little cottage. It had
+begun to be wintry, a sprinkling of snow was on the ground and the air
+was quite frosty, though the morning was bright. I did feel so
+strange--sorrowful yet excited, and as if I really did not know who I
+was. And though the tears were running down poor Kezia's face when she
+bade us good-bye at the window of the railway carriage, I could not have
+cried if I had wished. We had a three miles' drive to the station. It
+was only the third or fourth time in my life I had ever been there, and
+I had never travelled for longer than half an hour or so, when granny
+had taken me, and once or twice Sharley and the others, to one of the
+neighbouring towns famed for their beautiful cathedrals.
+
+We travelled second class. I thought it very comfortable, and it was
+very nice to have foot-warmers, which I had never seen before. My
+spirits rose steadily and even grandmamma's face had a pinky colour,
+which made her look quite young.
+
+'I should like to travel like this for a week without stopping,' I said.
+
+Granny smiled.
+
+'I don't think you would,' she said. 'You will feel you have had quite
+enough of it by the time we get to London.'
+
+And after an hour or two, especially when the short winter afternoon
+grew misty and dull, so that I could scarcely distinguish the landscape
+as we flew past, I began to agree with her.
+
+'It will be quite dark when we get to Chichester Square,' said
+grandmamma. 'You must wait for your first real sight of London till
+to-morrow. I hope the weather will not be foggy.'
+
+'Will there be flys at the station?' I asked, 'or did you write to order
+one?'
+
+Grandmamma smiled.
+
+'No, dear, that would not be necessary. There are always lots of
+four-wheelers and hansoms. But Mr. Vandeleur is sending a footman to
+meet us and he will find us a cab.'
+
+'Hasn't he got a carriage then?' said I.
+
+Grandmamma shook her head.
+
+'Not in London. Their carriages and horses are in the country still for
+Mrs. Vandeleur. They will not be sent back to London till she comes.'
+
+'I hope that won't be for a good long while,' I said to myself, rather
+unfeelingly, for I might have remembered that as soon as my cousin's
+wife was well enough she was to return. So her staying away long would
+mean her not getting well.
+
+Their being away--for Mr. Vandeleur was not in London himself just
+then--was the part that pleased me the most of the whole plan. I thought
+it would be great fun to be alone in London with grandmamma, and I had
+been making lists of the things I wanted her to do and the places we
+should go to see. It never struck me that she could have any one or
+anything to think of but me myself!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+NO. 29 CHICHESTER SQUARE
+
+
+It was quite dark when we arrived at Paddington Station, and long before
+then, as grandmamma had prophesied, I had had much more than enough of
+the railway journey at first so pleasant.
+
+I was tired and sleepy. It all seemed very, very strange and confusing
+to me--the huge railway station, the dimly burning gas-lamps, the
+bustle, the lots of people. For, as I have to keep reminding you, there
+is scarcely ever nowadays a child who leads so quiet and unchangeful a
+life as mine had been. I felt in a dream. If I had been less tired in my
+body I daresay my mind and fancy would have been amused and excited by
+it all. As it was, I just clung to grandmamma stupidly, wondering how
+she kept her head, wondering still more, when I heard her suddenly
+talking to some one--who turned out to be Mr. Vandeleur's footman--how
+in the world she or he, or both of them, had managed to find each other
+out in the crowd!
+
+I did not speak. After a while I remember finding myself, and granny of
+course, safe in a four-wheeler, which seemed narrow and stuffy compared
+to the Middlemoor flys, and jolted along with a terrible rattle and
+noise, so that I could scarcely distinguish the words grandmamma said
+when once or twice she spoke to me. I daresay a good deal of the noise
+was outside the cab, and some of it perhaps inside my own head, for it
+did not altogether stop even when _we_ did--that is to say when we drew
+up at 29 Chichester Square.
+
+The house was very large--the hall looked to me almost as large as the
+hall at Moor Court. It was not really so, but I could scarcely judge of
+anything correctly that night. I was so very tired.
+
+[Illustration: A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
+respectfully to grandmamma.--P. 126.]
+
+A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed respectfully to
+grandmamma. He was the butler. He handed us over, so to say, to a
+nice-looking oldish woman, who was the head housemaid, and she took us
+at once upstairs to our rooms, the butler asking grandmamma to leave the
+luggage and the cab-paying to him--he would see that it was all right.
+She thanked him nicely, but rather 'grandly'--not at all as if she
+was not accustomed to lots of servants and attention, which I was
+pleased at. It was a good thing for me that I had been so much with the
+Nestors; it prevented my seeming awkward or shy with so many servants
+about, which otherwise I might have been. Grandmamma of course _had_
+been used to being rich, but _I_ never had.
+
+There came a disappointment the very first thing. Hales, the housemaid,
+threw open the door of a large, rather gloomy-looking bedroom, where a
+fire was burning and candles already lighted.
+
+'Your room, ma'am,' she said. 'Missie's----' she hesitated. 'Miss
+Wingfield's,' said granny. 'Miss Wingfield's,' Hales repeated, 'is on
+the next floor but one.'
+
+Grandmamma looked uneasy.
+
+'Is it far from this room?' she said.
+
+'Oh no, ma'am, just the staircase--it is over this. Mr. Vandeleur
+thought it was the best. It was Mrs. Vandeleur's when she was a little
+girl.' For the house in Chichester Square had been left to Cousin Agnes
+by her parents a few years ago; that was why it seemed rather
+old-fashioned. 'All the rooms on this floor besides this one,' Hales
+went on, 'are Mrs. Vandeleur's; and master's study, and the next floor
+are spare rooms, except to the back, and we thought it was fresher and
+pleasanter to the front for the young lady.'
+
+Grandmamma looked pleased at the kind way Hales spoke, but still she
+hesitated. I gave her a little tug.
+
+'I don't mind,' I said, for I was not at all a frightened child about
+sleeping alone and things like that. She smiled back at me. 'That's
+right,' she said, and I felt rewarded.
+
+My room was a nice one when I got there, but it did seem a tremendous
+way up, and it looked rather bare and felt rather chilly, even though
+there was a fire burning, which, however, had not been lighted very
+long. The housemaid went towards it and gave it a poke, murmuring
+something about 'Belinda being so careless.' Belinda, as I soon found
+out, was the second housemaid, and it was she who was to wait upon me
+and take care of my room.
+
+'You must ring for anything you want, miss,' said Hales, 'and if Belinda
+isn't attentive perhaps you will mention it.'
+
+And so saying she left me. I felt rather lonely, even though grandmamma
+was in the same house. There was a deserted feeling about the room as if
+it had not been used for a very long time, and my two boxes looked very
+small indeed. I felt no interest in unpacking my things, even though I
+had brought my books and some of my little ornaments.
+
+'They will look nothing in this great bare place,' I thought. 'I won't
+take them out, and then I shall have the feeling that we are not going
+to be here for long.'
+
+A queer sort of home-sickness for Windy Gap and for my life there came
+over me.
+
+'I do wish we had not come here; I'm sure I'm going to hate it. I think
+grandmamma might have come up with me to see my room,' and I stood there
+beside the flickering little fire, feeling far from happy or even
+amiable.
+
+Suddenly, the sound of a gong startled me. I had not even begun to take
+off my hat and jacket. I did so now in a hurry, and then turned to wash
+my hands and face, somewhat cheered to find a can of nice hot water
+standing ready. Then I smoothed my hair with a little pocket-comb I had,
+as I dared not wait to take out any of my things. But I am afraid I did
+not look as neat as usual or as I might have done if I hadn't wasted my
+time.
+
+I hurried downstairs; a door stood open, and looking in, I was sure
+that it was the dining-room, and grandmamma there waiting for me. A
+table, which to me seemed very large, though it was really an
+ordinary-sized round one, was nicely arranged for tea. How glad I was
+that it was not dinner!
+
+'Come, dear,' said grandmamma, 'you must be very hungry.'
+
+'I couldn't change my dress, grandmamma,' I said, not quite sure if she
+would not be displeased with me.
+
+'Of course not,' she replied, cheerfully, 'I never expected it this
+first evening.'
+
+My spirits rose when I had had a nice cup of tea and something to
+eat--it is funny how our bodies rule our minds sometimes--and I began to
+talk more in my usual way, especially as, to my great relief, the
+servants had by this time left the room.
+
+'Shall we have tea like this every evening, grandmamma?' I asked; 'it is
+so much nicer than dinner.'
+
+Grandmamma hesitated.
+
+'Yes,' she said, 'while we are alone I think it will be the best plan,
+as you are too young for late dinner. When your cousins come home, of
+course things will be regularly arranged.'
+
+'That means,' I thought to myself, 'that I shall have all my meals
+alone, I suppose,' and again an unreasonably cross feeling came over me.
+
+Grandmamma noticed it, I think, but she said nothing, and very soon
+after we had finished tea she proposed that I should go to bed. She took
+me upstairs herself to my room, and waited till I was in bed; then she
+kissed me as lovingly and tenderly as ever, but, all the same, no sooner
+had she left me alone than I buried my face in the pillow and burst into
+tears. I had an under feeling that grandmamma was not quite pleased with
+me. I know now that she was only anxious, and perhaps a little
+disappointed, at my not seeming brighter. For, after all, everything she
+had done and was doing was for my sake, and I should have trusted her
+and known this by instinct, instead of allowing myself from the very
+first beginning of our coming to London to think I was a sort of martyr.
+
+'I can see how it's going to be,' I thought, 'as soon as ever Mr. and
+Mrs. Vandeleur come back I shall be nowhere at all and nobody at all in
+this horrid, gloomy London. Cousin Agnes will be grandmamma's first
+thought, and I shall be expected to spend most of my life up in my room
+by myself. It is too bad, it isn't my fault that I am an orphan with no
+other home of my own. I would rather have stayed at Windy Gap, however
+poor we were, than feel as I know I am going to do.'
+
+But in the middle of all these miserable ideas I fell asleep, and slept
+very soundly--I don't think I dreamt at all--till the next morning.
+
+When I opened my eyes I thought it was still the night. There seemed no
+light, but by degrees, as I got accustomed to the darkness, I made out
+the shapes of the two windows. Then a clock outside struck seven, and
+gradually everything came back to me--the journey and our arrival and
+the unhappy thoughts amidst which I had fallen asleep.
+
+Somehow, even though as yet there was nothing to cheer me--for what can
+be gloomier than to watch the cold dawn of a winter's morning creeping
+over the gray sky of London?--somehow, things seemed less dismal
+already. The fact was I had had a very good night, and was feeling
+rested and refreshed, so much so that I soon began to fidget and to wish
+that some one would come with my hot water and say it was time to get
+up.
+
+This did not happen till half-past seven, when a knock at the door was
+followed by the appearance of Belinda--at least I guessed it was
+Belinda, for I had not seen her before. She was a pleasant enough
+looking girl, but with rather a pert manner, and she spoke to me as if I
+were about six.
+
+'You'd better get up at once, miss, as breakfast's to be so early, and
+I'm to help you to dress if you need me.'
+
+'No, thank you,' I said with great dignity, 'I don't want any help. But
+where's my bath?'
+
+'I've had no orders about a bath,' she replied, 'but, to be sure, you
+can't go to the bathroom, as it's next master's dressing-room. You'll
+have to speak to Hales about it,' and she went away murmuring something
+indistinctly as to new ways and new rules.
+
+In a few minutes, however, she came back again, lumbering a bath after
+her and looking rather cross.
+
+'How different she is from Kezia,' I thought to myself. 'I would not
+have minded anything as much if she had come with us.'
+
+Still, I was sensible enough to know that it was no use making the worst
+of things, and I think I must have looked rather pleasanter and more
+cheerful than the evening before, when I tapped at grandmamma's door and
+went downstairs to breakfast holding her hand.
+
+_She_ had much more to think of and trouble about than I, and if I had
+not been so selfish I was quite sensible enough to have understood this.
+A great many things required rearranging and overlooking in the
+household, for, though the servants were good on the whole, it was long
+since they had had a mistress's eye over them, and without that, even
+the best servants are pretty sure to get into careless ways. And
+grandmamma was so very conscientious that she felt even more anxious
+about all these things for Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur's sake, than if it had
+been her own house and her own servants. Besides, though she was so
+clever and experienced, it was a good many years since she had had a
+large house to look after, as our little home at Middlemoor had been so
+very, very simple. Yes, I see now it must have been very hard upon her,
+for, instead of doing all I could to help her, I was quite taken up with
+my own part of it, and ready to grumble at and exaggerate every little
+difficulty or disagreeableness.
+
+I think grandmamma tried for some time not to see the sort of humour I
+was in, and how selfish and spoilt I had become. She excused me to
+herself by saying I was tired, and that such a complete change of life
+was trying for a child, and by kind little reasons of that sort.
+
+'I shall be rather busy this morning,' she said to me that first day at
+breakfast, 'but if it keeps fine we can go out a little in the
+afternoon, and let you have your first peep of London. Let me see, what
+can you do with yourself this morning? You have your things to unpack
+still, and I daresay you would like to put out your ornaments and books
+in your own room.'
+
+'I don't mean to put them out,' I said, 'it's not worth while. I will
+keep my books in one of the boxes and just get one out when I want it,
+and as for the ornaments, they wouldn't look anything in that big, bare
+room.'
+
+But as I said this I caught sight of grandmamma's face, and I felt
+ashamed of being so grumbling when I was really feeling more cheerful
+and interested in everything than the night before. So I changed my tone
+a little.
+
+'I will unpack all my things,' I said, 'and see how they look, anyway.
+Perhaps I'd better hang up my new frocks, I wouldn't like them to get
+crushed.'
+
+'I should think Belinda would have unpacked your clothes by this time,'
+said grandmamma, 'but no doubt you'll find something to do. But, by the
+bye, they may not have lighted a fire in your room, don't stay upstairs
+long if you feel chilly, but bring your work down to the library.' I
+went upstairs. In the full daylight, though it was a dull morning, I
+liked my room even less than the night before. There was nothing in it
+bright or fresh, though I daresay it had looked much nicer, years
+before, when Cousin Agnes was a little girl, for the cretonne curtains
+must once have been very pretty, with bunches of pink roses, which now,
+however, were faded, as well as the carpet on the floor, and the paper
+on the walls, to an over-all dinginess such as you never see in a
+country room even when everything in it is old.
+
+I sat down on a chair and looked about me disconsolately. Belinda had
+unpacked my clothes and arranged them after her fashion. My other
+possessions were still untouched, but I did not feel as if I cared to do
+anything with them.
+
+'I shall never be at home here,' I said to myself, 'but I suppose I must
+just try to bear it for the time, for grandmamma's sake.'
+
+Silly child that I was, as if grandmamma ever thought of herself, or her
+own likes and dislikes, before what she considered right and good for
+me. But the idea of being something of a martyr pleased me. I got out
+my work, not my fancy-work--I was in a mood for doing disagreeable
+things--but some plain sewing that I had not touched for some time, and
+took it downstairs to the library. I heard voices as I opened the door,
+grandmamma was sitting at the writing-table speaking to the cook, who
+stood beside her, a rather fat, pleasant-looking woman, who made a
+little curtsey when she saw me. But grandmamma looked up, for her,
+rather sharply--
+
+'Why, have you finished upstairs already, Helena?' she said. 'You had
+better go into the dining-room for a few minutes, I am busy just now.'
+
+I went away immediately, but I was very much offended, it just seemed
+the beginning of what I was fancying to myself. The dining-room door was
+ajar, and I caught sight of the footman looking over some spoons and
+forks.
+
+'I won't go in there,' I said to myself, and upstairs I mounted again.
+
+On the first landing, where grandmamma's room was, there were several
+other doors. All was perfectly quiet--there seemed no servants about, so
+I thought I would amuse myself by a little exploring. The first room I
+peeped into was large--larger than grandmamma's, but all the furniture
+was covered up. The only thing that interested me was a picture in
+pastelles hanging up over the mantelpiece. It caught my attention at
+once, and I stood looking up at it for some moments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+AN ARRIVAL
+
+
+It was the portrait of a young girl,--a very sweet face with soft,
+half-timid looking eyes.
+
+[Illustration: It was the portrait of a young girl.--P. 139.]
+
+'I wonder who it is,' I thought to myself, 'I wonder if it is Mrs.
+Vandeleur. If it is, she must be nice. I almost think I should like her
+very much.'
+
+A door in this room led into a dressing-room, which next caught my
+attention. Here, too, the only thing that struck me was a portrait. This
+time, a photograph only, of a boy. Such a nice, open face! For a moment
+or two I thought it must be Cousin Cosmo, but looking more closely I saw
+written in one corner the name 'Paul' and the date 'July 1865.' I caught
+my breath, as I said to myself--
+
+'It must be papa! I wonder if granny knows--she has none of him as young
+as that, I am sure. Oh, dear, how I do wish he was alive!'
+
+But it was with a softened feeling towards both of my unknown cousins
+that I stepped out on to the landing again.
+
+It did seem as if Mr. Vandeleur must have been very fond of my father
+for him to have kept this photograph all these years, hanging up where
+he must see it every time he came into his room.
+
+Unluckily, just as I was thinking this, Belinda made her appearance
+through a door leading on to the backstairs.
+
+'What are you doing here, miss?' she said. 'I don't think Hales would be
+best pleased to find you wandering about through these rooms.'
+
+'I don't know what you mean,' I said, frightened, yet indignant too. 'I
+was only looking at the pictures. In grandmamma's house at home I go
+into any room I like.'
+
+She gave a little laugh.
+
+'Oh, but you see, miss, you are not at your own home now,' she said,
+'that makes all the difference,' and she passed on, closing the door I
+had left open, as if to say, 'you can't go in there again!'
+
+I made my way up to my own room, all the doleful feelings coming back.
+
+'Really,' I said, as I curled myself up at the foot of the bed, 'there
+seems no place for me in the world, it's "move on--move on," like the
+poor boy in the play grandmamma once told me about.'
+
+And I sat there in the cold, nursing my bitter and discontented
+thoughts, as if I had nothing to be grateful or thankful for in life.
+
+Grandmamma did not come up to look for me, as in my secret heart I think
+I hoped she would. She was very, very busy, busier than I could have
+understood if she had told me about it, for though he did not at all
+mean to put too much upon her, Mr. Vandeleur had such faith in her good
+sense and judgment, that he had left everything to be settled by her
+when we came.
+
+I do not know if I fell asleep; I think I must have dozed a little, for
+the next thing I remember is rousing up, and feeling myself stiff and
+cramped, and not long after that the gong sounded again. I got down from
+my bed and looked at myself in the glass; my face seemed very pinched
+and miserable. I made my hair neat and washed my hands, for I would not
+have dared to go downstairs untidy to the dining-room. But I was not at
+all sorry when grandmamma looked at me anxiously, exclaiming--
+
+'My dear child, how white you are! Where have you been, and what have
+you been doing with yourself?'
+
+'I've been up in my own room,' I said, and just then grandmamma said
+nothing more, but when we were alone again she spoke to me seriously
+about the foolishness of risking making myself ill for no reason.
+
+'There _is_ reason,' I said crossly, 'at least there's no reason why I
+shouldn't be ill; nobody cares how I am.'
+
+For all answer grandmamma drew me to her and kissed me.
+
+'My poor, silly, little Helena,' she said.
+
+I was touched and ashamed, but irritated also; grandmamma understood me
+better than I understood myself.
+
+'We are going out now,' she said, 'put on your things as quickly as you
+can. I have several shops to go to, and the afternoons close in very
+early in London just now.'
+
+That walk with grandmamma--at least it was only partly a walk, for she
+took a hansom to the first shop she had to go to,--and I had never been
+in a hansom before, so you can fancy how I enjoyed it--yes, that first
+afternoon in London stands out very happily. Once I had grandmamma quite
+to myself everything seemed to come right, and I could almost have
+skipped along the street in my pleasure and excitement. The shops were
+already beginning to look gay in anticipation of Christmas, to
+me--country child that I was, they were bewilderingly magnificent.
+Grandmamma was careful not to let me get too tired, we drove home again
+in another hansom, carrying some of our purchases with us. These were
+mostly things for the house, and a few for ourselves, and shopping was
+so new to me, that I took the greatest interest even in ordering brushes
+for the housemaid, or choosing a new afternoon tea-service for Cousin
+Agnes.
+
+That evening, too, passed much better than the morning. Grandmamma spoke
+to me about how things were likely to be and what I myself should try to
+do.
+
+'I cannot fix anything about lessons for you,' she said, 'till after
+Cosmo and Agnes return, for I do not know how much time I shall have
+free for you. But you are well on for your age, and I don't think a few
+weeks without regular lessons will do you any harm, especially here in
+London, where there is so much new and interesting. But I think you had
+better make a plan for yourself--I will help you with it--for doing
+something every morning while I am busy.'
+
+'But I may be with you in the afternoons, mayn't I?' I said.
+
+'Of course, at least generally,' said grandmamma, 'whenever the weather
+is fine enough I will take you out. It would never do to shut you up
+when you have been so accustomed to the open air. Some days, perhaps, we
+may go out in the mornings. All I want you to understand now, is that
+plans cannot possibly be settled all at once. You must be patient and
+cheerful, and if there are things that you don't like just now, in a
+little while they will probably disappear.'
+
+I felt pleased at grandmamma talking to me more in her old consulting
+way, and for the time it seemed as if I could do as she wished without
+difficulty.
+
+And for some days and even weeks things went on pretty well. I used to
+get cross now and then when grandmamma could not be with me as much as I
+wanted, but so far, there was no _person_ to come between her and me, it
+was only her having so much to do; and whenever we were together she was
+so sweet and understanding in every way, that it made up for the lonely
+hours I sometimes had to spend.
+
+But in myself I am afraid there was not really any improvement, it was
+only on the surface. There was still the selfishness underneath, the
+readiness to take offence and be jealous of anything that seemed to put
+me out of my place as first with grandmamma. All the unhappy feelings
+were there, smouldering, ready to burst out into fire the moment
+anything stirred them up.
+
+Christmas came and went. It was very unlike any of the Christmases I had
+ever known, and of course it could not but seem rather lonely.
+Grandmamma still had some old friends in London, but she had not tried
+to see them, as she had been so busy, and not knowing as yet when Cousin
+Agnes would be returning. It seemed a sort of waiting time altogether.
+Now and then grandmamma would allude cheerfully to Cousin Cosmo and his
+wife coming home, hoping that it would be soon, as every letter brought
+better accounts of Mrs. Vandeleur's health. I certainly did not share in
+these hopes, I would rather have gone on living for ever as we were if
+only I could have had grandmamma to myself.
+
+I think it was about the 8th of January that there came one morning a
+letter which made grandmamma look very grave, and when she had finished
+reading it she sat for a moment or two without speaking. Then she said,
+as if thinking aloud--
+
+'Dear me, this is very disappointing.'
+
+'Is anything the matter?' I asked. 'Can't you tell me what it is,
+grandmamma?'
+
+'Oh yes, dear,' she said, 'it is only what I have been looking forward
+to so much--but it has come in such a different way. Your cousins are
+returning almost immediately, but only, I am sorry to say, because poor
+Agnes is so ill that the London doctor says she must be near him. They
+are bringing her up in an invalid carriage the first mild day, so I must
+have everything ready for them. It will probably be many weeks before
+she can leave her room,' and poor grandmamma sighed.
+
+This news was far from welcome to me, but I am afraid what I cared for
+had only to do with myself. I didn't feel very sorry for poor Cousin
+Agnes. Partly, perhaps, because I was too young to understand how
+seriously ill she was, but chiefly, I am afraid, because I immediately
+began to think how much of grandmamma's time would be taken up by her,
+and how dull it would be for me in consequence. And when grandmamma
+turned to me and said--
+
+'I'm sure I shall find you a help and comfort, Helena,' it almost
+startled me.
+
+I murmured something about wishing there was anything I could do, and I
+did feel ashamed.
+
+'I'm afraid there will not be much for you actually to do,' said
+grandmamma, 'and I don't think you need warning to be very quiet in a
+house with an invalid. You are never noisy,' and she smiled a little;
+'but you must try to be bright and not to mind if for a little while you
+have to be left a good deal to yourself. I must speak to Hales about
+going out with you sometimes, for you must have a walk every day.'
+
+And within a week of receiving this bad news there came one morning a
+telegram to say that Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur would be arriving that
+afternoon.
+
+'Oh, dear, dear,' I thought to myself when I heard it. 'I wish I
+were--oh, anywhere except here!'
+
+I spent the hours till luncheon--which was of course my dinner--as
+usual, doing some lessons and needlework. Hitherto, grandmamma had
+corrected my lessons in the evening.
+
+'I don't believe she'll have time to look over my exercises now,' I
+thought to myself, 'but I suppose I must go on doing them all the
+same.'
+
+I have forgotten to say that I did my lessons at a side table in the
+dining-room, where there was always a large fire burning. It did not
+seem worth while to have another room given up to me while grandmamma
+and I were alone in the house.
+
+I did not see grandmamma till luncheon, and then she told me that she
+was obliged to go out immediately to some distance, as Mrs. Vandeleur's
+invalid couch or table, I forget which, was not the kind ordered.
+
+'But mayn't I come with you?' I asked.
+
+Grandmamma shook her head. No, she was in a great hurry, and the place
+she was going to was in the city, it would do me no good, and it was a
+damp, foggy day. I might go into the Square garden for a little if I
+would promise to come in at once if it rained.
+
+There was nothing very inviting in this prospect. I liked the Square
+gardens well enough to walk up and down in with grandmamma, but alone
+was a very different matter. Still, it was better than staying in all
+the afternoon. And I spent an hour or more in pacing along the paths
+enjoying my self-pity to the full.
+
+There were a few other children playing together; how I envied them!
+
+'If I had even a little dog,' I said to myself, 'it would be something.
+But of course there's no chance of that--he would disturb Cousin Agnes.'
+
+I went back to the house an hour or so before the expected arrival.
+Grandmamma had already returned. She was in her own room, I peeped in on
+my way upstairs.
+
+'What do you want me to do, grandmamma?' I said.
+
+She glanced at me.
+
+'Change your frock, dear, and come down to the library with your work.
+Of course Cosmo will want to see you, once Cousin Agnes is settled in
+her room. Dear me, I do hope she will have stood the journey pretty
+well!'
+
+I came downstairs again with mixed feelings. I should rather have
+enjoyed making a martyr of myself by staying up in my own room. But, on
+the other hand, I had a good deal of curiosity on the subject of my
+unknown cousins.
+
+'I wonder if Cousin Agnes will be able to walk,' I thought to myself,
+'or if they will carry her in. I should like to see what an invalid
+carriage is like!'
+
+I think I pictured to myself a sort of palanquin, and eager to be on the
+spot at the moment of the arrival I changed my frock very quickly and
+hastened downstairs with my knitting in my hand--a model of propriety.
+
+'Do I look nice, grandmamma?' I asked. 'It is the first time I have had
+this frock on, you know.'
+
+For besides the new clothes grandmamma had ordered from Windy Gap, she
+had got me some very nice ones since we came to London. And this new one
+I thought the prettiest of all. It was brown velveteen with a falling
+collar of lace, with which I was especially pleased, for though my
+clothes had been always very neatly made, they had been very plain, the
+last two or three years more especially. So I stood there pleasantly
+expecting grandmamma's approval. But she scarcely glanced at me, I doubt
+if she heard what I said, for she was busy writing a note about
+something or other which had been forgotten, and almost as I spoke the
+footman came into the room to take it.
+
+'What were you saying, my dear?' she said quickly. 'Oh yes, very
+nice---- Be sure, William, that this is sent at once.'
+
+I crossed the room and sat down in the farthest corner, my heart
+swelling. It was not _all_ spoilt temper, I was really terribly afraid
+that grandmamma was beginning to care less for me. But before there had
+been time for her to notice my disappointment, there came the sound of
+wheels stopping at the door, and then the bell rang loudly. Grandmamma
+started up. If I had been less taken up with myself, I could easily have
+entered into her feelings. It was the first time for more than twelve
+years that she had seen her nephew, and think of all that had happened
+to her since then! But none of these thoughts came into my mind just
+then, it was quite filled with myself and my own troubles, and but for
+my curiosity I think I would have hidden myself behind the
+window-curtains.
+
+Grandmamma went out into the hall and I followed her. The door was
+already opened, as the servants had been on the look-out.
+
+The first thing I saw was a tall, slight figure coming very slowly up
+the steps on the arm of a dark, grave-looking man. Behind them came a
+maid laden with shawls and cushions. They came quietly into the hall,
+grandmamma moving forward a little to meet them, though without
+speaking.
+
+A smile came over Cousin Agnes's pale face as she caught sight of her,
+but Mr. Vandeleur looked up almost sharply.
+
+'Wait till we get her into the library,' he said.
+
+Evidently coming up those few steps had almost been too much for his
+wife, for I saw her face grow still paler. I was watching with such
+interest that I quite forgot that where I stood I was partially blocking
+up the doorway. Without noticing who I was, so completely absorbed was
+he with Cousin Agnes, Mr. Vandeleur stretched out his hand and half put
+me aside.
+
+'Take care,' he said quickly, and before there was time for
+more--'Helena, do get out of the way,' said grandmamma.
+
+That was the last straw for me. I did get out of the way. I turned and
+rushed across the hall, and upstairs to my own room without a word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A CATASTROPHE
+
+
+No one came up to look for me; I don't know that I expected it, but
+still I was disappointed and made a fresh grievance of this neglect, as
+I considered it. The truth was, nobody was thinking of me at all, for
+Cousin Agnes had fainted when she got into the library and everybody was
+engrossed in attending to her.
+
+Afternoon tea time came and passed, and still I was alone. It was quite
+dark when at last Belinda came up to draw down the blinds, and was
+startled by finding me in my usual place when much upset--curled up at
+the foot of the bed.
+
+'Whatever are you doing here, miss?' she said, sharply. 'There's your
+tea been waiting in the dining-room for ever so long.'
+
+The fact was, she had been told to call me but had forgotten it.
+
+'I don't want any,' I said, shortly.
+
+'Nonsense, miss,' said the girl, 'you can't go without eating. And when
+there's any one ill in the house you must just make the best of things.'
+
+'Mrs. Vandeleur didn't seem so very ill,' I said, 'she was able to
+walk.'
+
+'Ah, but she's been worse since then--they had to fetch the doctor, and
+now she's in bed and better, and your grandmamma's sitting beside her.'
+
+I did feel sorry for Cousin Agnes when I heard this, though the sore
+feeling still remained that I wasn't wanted, and was of no use to any
+one. I was almost glad to escape seeing grandmamma, so I went downstairs
+quietly to the dining-room and had my tea, for I was very hungry. Just
+as I had finished, and was crossing the hall to go upstairs again, a
+tall figure came out of the library. I knew in a moment who it was, but
+Cousin Cosmo stared at me as if he couldn't imagine what child it could
+be, apparently at home in his house.
+
+'Who--what?' he began, but then corrected himself. 'Oh, to be sure,' he
+added, holding out his hand, 'you're Helena of course. I wasn't sure if
+you were at school or not.'
+
+'At school,' I repeated, 'grandmamma would never send me to school.'
+
+He smiled a little, or meant to do so, but I thought him very grim and
+forbidding.
+
+'I don't wonder at those boys not liking him for their guardian,' I said
+to myself as I looked up at him.
+
+'Ah, well,' he replied, 'so long as you remember to be a very quiet
+little girl, especially when you pass the first landing, I daresay it
+will be all right.'
+
+I didn't condescend to answer, but walked off with my most dignified
+air, which no doubt was lost upon my cousin, who, I fancy, had almost
+forgotten my existence before he had closed the hall door behind him,
+for he was just going out.
+
+I did not see grandmamma that evening, and I did not know that she saw
+me, for when she at last was free to come up to my room, I was in bed
+and fast asleep, and she was careful not to wake me. She told me this
+the next morning, and also that Belinda had said I had had my tea and
+supper comfortably. But--partly from pride, and partly from better
+motives--I did not tell her that I had cried myself to sleep.
+
+I need not go into the daily history of the next few weeks, indeed I
+don't wish to do so. They were the most miserable time of my whole life.
+Now that all is happy I don't want to dwell upon them. Dear grandmamma
+says, whenever we do speak about that time, that she really does not
+think it was _all_ my fault, and that comforts me. It was certainly not
+her fault, nor anybody's in one way, except of course mine. Things
+happened in a trying way, as they must do in life sometimes, and I don't
+think it was wrong of me to feel unhappy. We _have_ to be unhappy
+sometimes; but it was wrong of me not to bear it patiently, and to let
+myself grow bitter, and worst of all, to do what I did--what I am now
+going to tell about.
+
+Those dreary weeks went on till it was nearly Easter, which came very
+early that year. After my cousins' return home the weather got very bad
+and added to the gloom of everything.
+
+It was not so very cold, but it was _so_ dull! Fog more or less, every
+day, and if not fog, sleety rain, which generally began by trying to be
+snow, and for my part I wished it had been--it would have made the
+streets look clean for a few hours.
+
+There were lots of days on which I couldn't go out at all, and when I
+did go out, with Belinda as my companion, I did not enjoy it. She was a
+silly, selfish girl, though rather good-natured once she felt I was in
+some way dependent on her, but her ideas of amusing talk were not the
+same as mine. The only shop-windows she cared to look at were milliners'
+and drapers', and she couldn't understand my longing to read the names
+of the tempting volumes in the booksellers, and feeling so pleased if I
+saw any of my old friends among them.
+
+Indoors, my life was really principally spent in my own room, where,
+however, I always had a good big fire, which was a comfort. There were
+many days on which I scarcely saw grandmamma, a few on which I actually
+did not see her at all. For all this time Cousin Agnes was really
+terribly ill--much worse than I knew--and Mr. Vandeleur was nearly out
+of his mind with grief and anxiety, and self-reproach for having brought
+her up to London, which he had done rather against the advice of her
+doctor in the country, who, he now thought, understood her better than
+the great doctor in London. And grandmamma, I believe, had nearly as
+much to do in comforting him and keeping him from growing quite morbid,
+as in taking care of Cousin Agnes. All the improvement in her health
+which they had been so pleased at during the first part of the winter
+had gone, and I now know that for a great part of those weeks there was
+very little hope of her living. I saw Cousin Cosmo sometimes at
+breakfast but never at any other hour of the day, unless I happened to
+pass him on the staircase, which I avoided as much as possible, you may
+be sure, for if he did speak to me it was as if I were about three years
+old, and he was sure to say something about being very quiet. I don't
+think I could have been expected to like him, but I'm afraid I almost
+hated him then. It would have been better--that is one of the things
+grandmamma now says--to have told me more of their great anxiety, and it
+certainly would have been better to send me to school, to some
+day-school even, for the time.
+
+As it was, day by day I grew more miserable, for you see I had nothing
+to look forward to, no actual reason for hoping that my life would ever
+be happier again, for, not knowing but that poor Cousin Agnes might die
+any day, grandmamma did not like to speak of the future at all.
+
+I never saw her--Cousin Agnes I mean--never except once, but I have not
+come to that yet. At last, things came to a crisis with me. One day, one
+morning, Belinda told me that I must not stay in my room as it was to be
+what she called 'turned out,' by which she meant that it was to undergo
+an extra thorough cleaning. She had forgotten to tell me this the night
+before, so that when I came up from breakfast, which I had had alone,
+intending to settle down comfortably with my books before the fire, I
+found there was no fire and everything in confusion.
+
+'What am I to do?' I said.
+
+'You must go down to the dining-room and do your lessons there,' said
+Belinda. 'There will be no one to disturb you, once the breakfast things
+are taken away.'
+
+'Has Mr. Vandeleur had his breakfast?' I asked.
+
+'I don't know,' said Belinda, shortly, for she had been told not to tell
+me that Cousin Agnes had been so ill in the night that the great doctor
+had been sent for, and they were now having a consultation about her in
+the library.
+
+'I'll help you to get your things together,' she went on, 'and you must
+go downstairs as quietly as possible.'
+
+We collected my books. It made me melancholy to see them, there were
+such piles of exercises grandmamma had never had time to look over!
+Belinda heaped them all on to the top of my atlas, the glass ink-bottle
+among them.
+
+'Are they quite steady?' I said. 'Hadn't I better come up again and only
+take half now?'
+
+'Oh, dear, no,' said Belinda,'they are right enough if you walk
+carefully,' for in her heart she knew that she should have helped me to
+carry them down, herself.
+
+But I had got used to her careless ways, and I didn't seem to mind
+anything much now, so I set off with my burden. It was all right till I
+got to the first floor--the floor where grandmamma's and Cousin Agnes's
+rooms were. Then, as ill luck would have it--just from taking extra
+care, I suppose--somehow or other I lost my footing and down I went, a
+regular good bumping roll from top to bottom of one flight of stairs,
+books, and slate, and glass ink-bottle all clattering after me! I'm
+quite sure that in all my life before or since I never made such a
+noise!
+
+[Illustration: Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
+first.--P. 160.]
+
+I hurt myself a good deal, though not seriously; but before I had time
+to do more than sit up and feel my arms and legs to be sure that none of
+them were broken, the library door below was thrown open, and up rushed
+two or three--at first sight I thought them still more--men! Cousin
+Cosmo the first.
+
+'In heaven's name,' he exclaimed, though even then he did not speak
+loudly, 'what is the matter? This is really inexcusable!'
+
+He meant, I think, that there should have been some one looking after
+me! But I took the harsh word to myself.
+
+'I--I've fallen downstairs,' I said, which of course was easy to be
+seen. There was a dark pool on the step beside me, and in spite of his
+irritation Cousin Cosmo was alarmed.
+
+'Have you cut yourself?' he said, 'are you bleeding?' and he took out
+his handkerchief, hardly knowing why, but as he stooped towards me it
+touched the stain.
+
+'Ink!' he said, in a tone of disgust. 'Really, even a child might have
+more sense!'
+
+Then the older of the two men who were with him came forward. He had a
+very grave but kind face.
+
+'It is very unfortunate,' he said,'I hope the noise has not startled
+Mrs. Vandeleur. You must really,' he went on, turning to Cousin Cosmo,
+but then stopping--'I must have a word or two with you about this before
+I go. In the meantime we had better pick up this little person.'
+
+I got up of myself, though something in the doctor's face prevented my
+feeling vexed at his words, as I might otherwise have been. But just as
+I was stooping to pick up my books and to hide the giddy, shaky feeling
+which came over me, a voice from the landing above made me start. It was
+grandmamma herself; she hastened down the flight of stairs, looking
+extremely upset.
+
+'Helena!' she exclaimed, and I think her face cleared a little when she
+saw me standing there,'you have not hurt yourself then? But what in the
+world were you doing to make such a terrific clatter? I never knew her
+do such a thing before,' she went on.
+
+'Did Agnes hear it?' said Cousin Cosmo, sharply.
+
+'I'm afraid it did startle her,' grandmamma replied, 'but fortunately
+she thought it was something in the basement. I must go back to her at
+once,' and without another word to me she turned upstairs again.
+
+I can't tell what I felt like; even now I hate to remember it. My own
+grandmamma to speak to me in that voice and not to care whether I was
+hurt or not! I think some servant was called to wipe up the ink, and I
+made my way, stiff and bruised and giddy, to the dining-room--I had not
+even the refuge of my own room to cry in at peace--while Cousin Cosmo
+and the doctors went back to the library. And not long after, I heard
+the front door close and a carriage drive away.
+
+I thought my cup was full, but it was not, as you shall hear. I didn't
+try to do any lessons. My head was aching and I didn't feel as if it
+mattered what I did or didn't do.
+
+'If only my room was ready,' I thought, half stupidly, 'I wouldn't mind
+so much.'
+
+I think I must have cried a good deal almost without knowing it, for
+after a while, when the footman came into the room, I started up with a
+conscious feeling of not wanting to be seen, and turned towards the
+window, where I stood pretending to look out. Not that there was
+anything to be seen; the fog was getting so thick that I could scarcely
+distinguish the railings a few feet off.
+
+The footman left the room again, but I felt sure he was coming back, so
+I crept behind the shelter of the heavy curtains and curled myself up on
+the floor, drawing them round me. And then, how soon I can't tell, I
+fell asleep. It has always been my way to do so when I've been very
+unhappy, and the unhappier I am the more heavily I sleep, though not in
+a nice refreshing way.
+
+I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. I could not have been
+asleep more than an hour, but to me it seemed like a whole night, and as
+I was beginning to collect my thoughts I heard voices talking in the
+room behind me. It must have been these voices which had awakened me.
+
+The first I heard was Mr. Vandeleur's.
+
+'I am very sorry about it,' he was saying, 'but I see no help for it. I
+would not for worlds distress you if I could avoid doing so, for all my
+old debts to you, my dear aunt, are doubled now by your devotion to
+Agnes. She will in great measure owe her life to you, I feel.'
+
+'You exaggerate it,' said grandmamma, 'though I do believe I am a
+comfort to her. But never mind about that just now--the present question
+is Helena.'
+
+'Yes,' he replied, 'I can't tell you how strongly I feel that it would
+be for the child's good too, though I can quite understand it would be
+difficult for you to see it in that light.'
+
+'No,' said grandmamma, 'I have been thinking about it myself, for of
+course I have not been feeling satisfied about her. Perhaps in the past
+I have thought of her too exclusively, and it is very difficult for a
+child not to be spoilt by this. And now on the other hand----'
+
+'It is too much for you yourself,' interrupted my cousin, 'she should be
+quite off your mind. I have the greatest confidence in Dr. Pierce's
+judgment in such matters. He would recommend no school hastily. If you
+will come into the library I will give you the addresses of the two he
+mentioned. No doubt you will prefer to write for particulars yourself;
+though when it is settled I daresay I could manage to take her there.
+For even with these fresh hopes they have given us, now this crisis is
+passed, I doubt your being able to leave Agnes for more than an hour or
+two at a time.'
+
+'I should not think of doing so,' said grandmamma, decidedly. 'Yes--if
+you will give me the addresses I will write.'
+
+To me her voice sounded cold and hard; _now_ I know of course that it
+was only the force she was putting upon herself to crush down her own
+feelings about parting with me.
+
+It was not till they had left the room that I began to understand what a
+dishonourable thing I had been doing in listening to this conversation,
+and for a moment there came over me the impulse to rush after them and
+tell what I had heard. But only for a moment; the dull heavy feeling,
+which had been hanging over me for so long of not being cared for, of
+having no place of my own and being in everybody's way, seemed suddenly
+to have increased to an actual certainty. Hitherto, it now seemed to me,
+I had only been playing with the idea, and now as a sort of punishment
+had come upon me the reality of the cruel truth--grandmamma did _not_
+care for me any longer. She had got back the nephew who had been like a
+son to her, and he and his wife had stolen away from me all her love.
+Then came the mortification of remembering that I was living in Cousin
+Cosmo's house--a most unwelcome guest.
+
+'He never has liked me,' I thought to myself; 'even at the very
+beginning, grandmamma never gave me any kind messages from him. And
+those poor boys Gerard told me of couldn't care for him--he must be
+horrid.'
+
+Then a new thought struck me. 'I _have_ a home still,' I thought; 'Windy
+Gap is ours, I could live there with Kezia and trouble nobody and hardly
+cost anything. I won't stay here to be sent to school; I don't think I
+am bound to bear it.'
+
+I crept out of my corner.
+
+'Surely my room will be ready by now,' I thought, and walking very
+slowly still, for falling asleep in the cold had made me even stiffer,
+I made my way upstairs.
+
+Yes, my room was ready, and there was a good fire. There was a little
+comfort in that: I sat down on the floor in front of it and began to
+think out my plans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HARRY
+
+
+In spite of all that was on my mind I slept soundly, waking the next
+morning a little after my usual hour. Very quickly, so much was it
+impressed on my brain, I suppose, I recollected the determination with
+which I had gone to bed the night before.
+
+I hurried to the window and drew up the blind, for I had made one
+condition with myself--I would not attempt to carry out my plan if the
+fog was still there! But it had gone. Whether I was glad or sorry I
+really can't say. I dressed quickly, thinking or planning all the time.
+When I got downstairs to the dining-room it was empty, but on the table
+were the traces of some one having breakfasted there.
+
+Just then the footman came in--
+
+'I was to tell you, miss,' he said, 'that Mrs. Wingfield won't be down
+to breakfast; it's to be taken upstairs to her.'
+
+'And Mr. Vandeleur has had his, I suppose?' I said.
+
+'Yes, miss,' he replied, clearing the table of some of the plates and
+dishes.
+
+I went on with my breakfast, eating as much as I could, for being what
+is called an 'old-fashioned' child, I thought to myself it might be some
+time before I got a regular meal again. Then I went upstairs, where,
+thanks to Belinda's turn-out of the day before, my room was already in
+order and the fire lighted. I locked the door and set to work.
+
+About an hour later, having listened till everything seemed quiet about
+the house, I made my way cautiously and carefully downstairs, carrying
+my own travelling-bag stuffed as full as it would hold and a brown paper
+parcel. When I got to the first bedroom floor, where grandmamma's room
+was, a sudden strange feeling came over me. I felt as if I _must_ see
+her, even if she didn't see me. Her door was ajar.
+
+'Very likely,' I thought, 'she will be writing in there.'
+
+For, lately, I knew she had been there almost entirely, when not
+actually in Cousin Agnes's room, so as to be near her.
+
+'I will peep in,' I said to myself.
+
+I put down what I was carrying and crept round the door noiselessly. At
+first I thought there was no one in the room, then to my surprise I saw
+that the position of the bed had been changed. It now stood with its
+back to the window, but the light of a brightly burning fire fell
+clearly upon it. There was some one in bed! Could it be grandmamma? If
+so, she must be really ill, it was so unlike her ever to stay in bed. I
+stepped forward a little--no, the pale face with the pretty bright hair
+showing against the pillows was not grandmamma, it was some one much
+younger, and with a sort of awe I said to myself it must be Cousin
+Agnes.
+
+So it was, she had been moved into grandmamma's room a day or two before
+for a little change.
+
+It could not have been the sound I made, for I really made none, that
+roused her; it must just have been the _feeling_ that some one had
+entered the room. For all at once she opened her eyes, such very sweet
+blue eyes they were, and looked at me, at first in a half-startled way,
+but then with a little smile.
+
+'I thought I was dreaming,' she whispered. 'I have had such a nice
+sleep. Is that you, little Helena? I'm so glad to see you; I wanted you
+to come before, often.'
+
+I stood there trembling.
+
+What would grandmamma or Mr. Vandeleur think if they came in and found
+me there? But yet Cousin Agnes was so very sweet, her voice so gentle
+and almost loving, that I felt I could not run out of the room without
+answering her.
+
+'Thank you,' I said, 'I do hope you are better.'
+
+'I am going to be better very soon, I feel almost sure,' she said, but
+her voice was already growing weaker. 'Are you going out, dear?' she
+went on. 'Good-bye, I hope you will have a nice walk. Come again to see
+me soon.'
+
+'Thank you,' I whispered again, something in her voice almost making the
+tears come into my eyes, and I crept off as quietly as possible, with a
+curious feeling that if I delayed I should not go at all.
+
+By this time you will have guessed what my plan was. I think I will not
+go into all the particulars of how I made my way to Paddington in a
+hansom, which I picked up just outside the square, and how I managed to
+take my ticket, a third class one this time, for though I had brought
+all my money--a few shillings of my own and a sovereign which Cousin
+Cosmo had sent me for a Christmas box--I saw that care would be needed
+to make it take me to my journey's end. Nor, how at last, late in the
+afternoon, I found myself on the platform at Middlemoor Station.
+
+I was very tired, now that the first excitement had gone off.
+
+'How glad I shall be to get to Windy Gap,' I thought, 'and to be with
+Kezia.'
+
+I opened my purse and looked at my money. There were three shillings and
+some coppers, not enough for a fly, which I knew cost five shillings.
+
+'I can't walk all the way,' I said to myself. 'It's getting so late
+too,' for I had had to wait more than an hour at Paddington for a train.
+
+Then a bright idea struck me. There was an omnibus that went rather more
+than half-way, if only I could get it I should be able to manage. I went
+out of the station and there, to my delight, it stood; by good luck I
+had come by a train which it always met. There were two other passengers
+in it already, but of course there was plenty of room for me and my bag
+and my parcel, so I settled myself in a corner, not sorry to see that my
+companions were perfect strangers to me. It was now about seven in
+the evening, the sky was fast darkening. Off we jogged, going at a
+pretty good pace at first, but soon falling back to a very slow one as
+the road began to mount. I fancy I dozed a little, for the next thing I
+remember was the stopping of the omnibus at the little roadside inn,
+which was the end of its journey.
+
+I got out and paid my fare, and then set off on what was really the
+worst part of the whole, for I was now very tired and my luggage, small
+as it was, seemed to weigh like lead. I might have looked out for a boy
+to carry it for me, but that idea didn't enter my head, and I was very
+anxious not to be noticed by any one who might have known me.
+
+[Illustration: It was all uphill too.--P. 173.]
+
+I seemed to have no feeling now except the longing to be 'at home' and
+with Kezia. I almost forgot why I had come and all about my unhappiness
+in London; but, oh dear! how that mile stretched itself out! It was all
+uphill too; every now and then I was forced to stop for a minute and to
+put down my packages on the ground so as to rest my aching arms, so my
+progress was very slow. It was quite dark when at last I found myself
+stumbling up the bit of steep path which lay between the end of the road
+where Sharley's pony-cart used to wait and our own little garden-gate.
+If I hadn't known my way so well I could scarcely have found it, but at
+last my goal was reached. I stood at the door for a moment or two
+without knocking, to recover my breath, and indeed my wits, a little. It
+all seemed so strange, I felt as if I were dreaming. But soon the fresh
+sweet air, which was almost like native air to me, made me feel more
+like myself--made me realise that here I was again at dear old Windy
+Gap. More than that, I would not let my mind dwell upon, except to think
+over what should be my first words to Kezia.
+
+I knocked at last, and then for the first time I noticed that there was
+a light in the drawing-room shining through the blinds.
+
+'Dear me,' I thought, 'how strange,' and then a terror came over
+me--supposing the house was let to strangers! I had quite forgotten that
+this was possible.
+
+But before I had time to think of what I could in that case do, the door
+was opened.
+
+'Kezia,' I gasped, but looking up, my new fears took shape.
+
+It was not Kezia who stood there, it was a boy; a boy about two or three
+years older than I, not as tall as Gerard Nestor, though strong and
+sturdy looking, and with--even at that moment I thought so to
+myself--the very nicest face I had ever seen. He was sunburnt and ruddy,
+with short dark hair and bright kind-looking eyes, which when he smiled
+seemed to smile too. I daresay I did not see all that just then, but it
+is difficult now to separate my earliest remembrance of him from what I
+noticed afterwards, and there never was, there never has been, anything
+to contradict or confuse the first feeling, or instinct, that he was as
+good and true as he looked, my dear old Harry!
+
+Just now, of course, his face had a very surprised expression.
+
+'Kezia?' he repeated. 'I am sorry she is not in just now.'
+
+It was an immense relief to gather from his words that she was not away.
+
+'Will she be in soon?' I said, eagerly; 'I didn't know there was any one
+else in the house. May I--do you mind--if I come in and wait till Kezia
+returns?'
+
+'Certainly,' said the boy, and as he spoke he stooped to pick up the bag
+and parcel which his quick eyes had caught sight of. 'My brother and I
+are staying here,' he said, as he crossed the little hall to the
+drawing-room door. 'We are alone here except for Kezia; we came here a
+fortnight ago from school, it was broken up because of illness.'
+
+I think he went on speaking out of a sort of friendly wish to set me at
+my ease, and I listened half stupidly, I don't think I quite took in
+what he said. A younger boy was sitting in my own old corner, by the
+window, and a little table with a lamp on it was drawn up beside him.
+
+'Lindsay,' said my guide, and the younger boy, who was evidently very
+well drilled by his brother, started up at once. 'This--this young
+lady,' for by this time he had found out I was a lady in spite of my
+brown paper parcel, 'has come to see Kezia. Put some coal on the fire,
+it's getting very low.'
+
+Lindsay obeyed, eyeing me as he did so. He was smaller and slighter than
+his brother, with fair hair and a rather girlish face.
+
+'Won't you sit down?' said Harry, pushing a chair forward to me.
+
+I was dreadfully tired and very glad to sit down, and now my brain began
+to work a little more quickly. The name 'Lindsay' had started some
+recollection.
+
+'Are you--' I began, 'is your name Vandeleur; are you the boys at school
+with Gerard Nestor?'
+
+'Yes,' said Harry, opening his eyes very wide, 'and--would you mind
+telling me who you are?' he added bluntly.
+
+'I'm Helena Wingfield,' I said. 'This is my home. I have come back
+alone, all the way from London, because----' and I stopped short.
+
+'Because?' repeated Harry, looking at me with his kind, though searching
+eyes. Something in his manner made me feel that I must answer him. He
+was only a boy, not nearly as 'grown-up' in manners or appearance as
+Gerard Nestor; there was something even a little rough about him, but
+still he seemed at once to take the upper hand with me; I felt that I
+must respect him.
+
+'Because--' I faltered, feeling it very difficult to keep from
+crying--'because I was so miserable in London in your--in Cousin Cosmo's
+house. He is my cousin, you know,' I went on, 'though his name is
+different.'
+
+'I know,' said Harry, quietly, 'he's our cousin too, and our guardian.
+But you're better off than we are--you've got your grandmother. I know
+all about you, you see. But how on earth did she let you come away like
+this alone? Or is she--no, she can't be with you, surely?'
+
+'No,' I replied, 'I'm alone, I thought I told you so; and grandmamma
+doesn't know I've come away, of course she wouldn't have let me. Nobody
+does know.'
+
+Harry's face grew very grave indeed, and Lindsay raised himself from
+stooping over the fire, and stood staring at me as if I was something
+very extraordinary.
+
+'Your grandmother doesn't know?' repeated Harry, 'nobody knows? How
+could you come away like that? Why, your grandmother will be nearly out
+of her mind about you!'
+
+'No, she won't,' I replied, 'she doesn't care for me now, it's all quite
+different from what it used to be. Nobody cares for me, they'll only be
+very glad to be rid of the trouble of me.'
+
+The tears had got up into my eyes by this time, and as I spoke they
+began slowly to drop on to my cheeks. Harry saw them, I knew, but I
+didn't feel as if I cared, though I think I wanted him to be sorry for
+me, his kind face looked as if he would be. So I was rather surprised
+when, instead of saying something sympathising and gentle, he answered
+rather abruptly--
+
+'Helena, I don't mean to be rude, for of course it's no business of
+mine, but I think you must know that you are talking nonsense. I don't
+mean about Mr. Vandeleur, or any one but your grandmother; but as for
+saying that she has left off caring for you, that's all--perfectly
+impossible. _I_ know enough for that; you've been with her all your
+life, and she's been most awfully good to you----'
+
+'I know she has,' I interrupted, 'that makes it all the worse to bear.'
+
+'We'll talk about that afterwards,' said Harry, 'it's your grandmother
+you should think of now--what do you mean to do?'
+
+I stared at him, not quite understanding.
+
+'I meant to stay here,' I said, 'with Kezia. If I can't--if you count it
+your house and won't let me stay, I must go somewhere else. But you
+can't stop my staying here till I've seen Kezia.'
+
+Harry gave an impatient exclamation.
+
+'Can't you understand,' he said, 'that I meant what are you going to do
+about letting your grandmother know where you are?'
+
+'I hadn't thought about it,' I said; 'perhaps they won't find out till
+to-morrow morning.'
+
+And then in my indignation I went on to tell him about the lonely life I
+had had lately, ending up with an account of my fall down the stairs
+and what I had overheard about being sent away to school.
+
+'Poor Helena,' said Lindsay.
+
+Harry, too, was sorry for me, I know, but just then he did not say much.
+
+'All the same,' he replied, after listening to me, 'it wouldn't be right
+to risk your grandmother's being frightened, any longer. I'll send a
+telegram at once.'
+
+The village post and telegraph office was only a quarter of a mile from
+our house. Harry turned to leave the room as he spoke.
+
+'Lindsay, you'll look after Helena till I come back,' he said. 'I
+daresay Kezia won't be in for an hour or so.'
+
+I stopped him.
+
+'You mustn't send a telegram without telling me what you are going to
+say,' I said.
+
+He looked at me.
+
+'I shall just put--"Helena is here, safe and well,"' he replied, and to
+this I could not make any reasonable objection.
+
+'I may be safe, but I don't think I am well,' I said grumblingly when he
+had gone. 'I'm starving, to begin with. I've had nothing to eat all day
+except two buns I bought at Paddington Station, and my head's aching
+dreadfully.'
+
+'Oh, dear,' said Lindsay, who was a soft-hearted little fellow, and most
+ready to sympathise, especially in those troubles which he best
+understood, 'you must be awfully hungry. We had our tea some time ago,
+but Kezia always gives us supper. Come into the kitchen and let's see
+what we can find--or no, you're too tired--you stay here and I'll forage
+for you.'
+
+He went off, returning in a few minutes with a jug of milk and a big
+slice of one of Kezia's own gingerbread cakes. I thought nothing had
+ever tasted so good, and my headache seemed to get better after eating
+it and drinking the milk.
+
+I was just finishing when Harry came in again.
+
+'That's right,' he said, 'I forgot that you must be hungry.'
+
+Then we all three sat and looked at each other without speaking.
+
+'Lindsay,' said Harry at last, 'you'd better finish that exercise you
+were doing when Helena came in,' and Lindsay obediently went back to the
+table.
+
+I wanted Harry to speak to me. After all I had told him I thought he
+should have been sorry for me, and should have allowed that I had right
+on my side, instead of letting me sit there in silence. At last I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+'I don't think,' I said, 'that you should treat me as if I were too
+naughty to speak to. I know quite well that you are not at all fond of
+Mr. Vandeleur yourself, and that should make you sorry for me.'
+
+'I suppose you're thinking of what Gerard Nestor said,' Harry replied.
+'It's true I know very little of Mr. Vandeleur, though I daresay he has
+meant to be kind to us. But what I can't make out is how you could treat
+your grandmother so. Lindsay and I have never had any one like what
+she's been to you.'
+
+His words startled me.
+
+'If I had thought,' I began, 'that she would really care--or be
+frightened about me--perhaps I--' but I had no time to say more, there
+came a knock at the front door and Lindsay started up.
+
+'It's Kezia,' he said, 'she locks the back-door when she goes out in the
+evening and we let her in. She's been to church,' so off he flew, eager
+to be the one to give her the news of my unexpected arrival.
+
+But I did not rush out to meet her, as I would have done at first.
+Harry's words had begun to make me a little less sure than I had been as
+to how even Kezia would look upon my conduct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+KEZIA'S COUNSEL
+
+
+The sound of low voices--Lindsay's and Kezia's, followed by an
+exclamation, Kezia's of course--reached Harry and me as we stood there
+in silence looking at each other.
+
+Then the door was pushed open and in hurried my old friend.
+
+'Miss Helena!' she said breathlessly. 'Miss Helena, I could scarce
+believe Master Lindsay! Dear, dear, how frightened your grandmother will
+be!'
+
+I could see that it went against her kindly feelings to receive me by
+blame at the very first, and yet her words showed plainly enough what
+she was thinking.
+
+'Grandmamma will not be frightened,' I said, rather coldly. 'Harry has
+sent her a telegram, and besides--I don't think she would have been
+frightened any way. It's all quite different now, Kezia, you don't
+understand. She's got other people to care for instead of me.'
+
+Kezia took no notice of this.
+
+'Dear, dear!' she said again. 'To think of you coming here alone! I'm
+sure when Master Lindsay met me at the door saying: "Guess who's here,
+Kezia," I never could have--' but here I interrupted her.
+
+'If that's all you've got to say to me I really don't care to hear it,'
+I said, 'but it's a queer sort of welcome. I can't go away to-night, I
+suppose, but I will the very first thing to-morrow morning. I daresay
+they'll take me in at the vicarage, but really--' I broke off
+again--'considering that this is my own home, and--and--that I had no
+one else to go to in all the world except you, Kezia, I do think--' but
+here my voice failed, I burst into tears.
+
+Kezia put her arms round me very kindly.
+
+'Poor dear,' she said, 'whatever mistakes you've made, you must be tired
+to death. Come with me into the dining-room, Miss Helena, there's a
+better fire there, and I'll get you a cup of tea or something, and then
+you must go to bed. Your own room's quite ready, just as you left it.
+Master Lindsay has the little chair-bed in Mr. Harry's room--your
+grandmamma's room, I mean.'
+
+She led me into the dining-room, talking as she went, in this
+matter-of-fact way, to help me to recover myself.
+
+Harry and Lindsay remained behind.
+
+'I have had--some--milk, and a piece of--gingerbread,' I said, between
+my sobs, as Kezia established me in front of the fire in the other room.
+'I don't think I could eat anything else, but I'd like some tea very
+much.'
+
+I shivered in spite of the beautiful big fire close to me.
+
+'You shall have it at once,' said Kezia, hurrying off, 'though it
+mustn't be strong, and I'll make you a bit of toast, too.'
+
+Then I overheard a little bustle in the kitchen, and by the sounds, I
+made out that Harry or Lindsay, or both of them perhaps, were helping
+Kezia in her preparations.
+
+'What nice boys they are,' I thought to myself, and a feeling of shame
+began to come over me that I should have first got to know them when
+acting in a way that they, Harry at least, so evidently thought wrong
+and foolish.
+
+But now that, in spite of her disapproval, I felt myself safe in Kezia's
+care, the restraint I had put upon myself gave way more and more. I sat
+there crying quietly, and when the little tray with tea and a tempting
+piece of hot toast (which Harry's red face showed he had had to do with)
+made its appearance I ate and drank obediently, almost without speaking.
+
+Half an hour later I was in bed in my own little room, Kezia tucking me
+in as she had done so very, very often in my life.
+
+'Now go to sleep, dearie,' she said, 'and think of nothing till
+to-morrow morning, except that when things come to the worst they begin
+to get better.'
+
+And sleep I did, soundly and long. Harry and Lindsay had had their
+breakfast two hours before at least, when I woke, and other things had
+happened. A telegram had come in reply to Harry's, thanking him for it,
+announcing Mr. Vandeleur's arrival that very afternoon, and desiring
+Harry to meet him at Middlemoor Station.
+
+They did not tell me of this; perhaps they were afraid it would have
+made me run off again somewhere else. But when my old nurse brought up
+my breakfast we had a long, long talk together. I told her all that I
+had told Harry the night before, and of course in some ways it was
+easier for her to understand than it had been for him. I could not have
+had a better counsellor. She just put aside all I said about
+grandmamma's not caring for me any longer as simple nonsense; she didn't
+attempt to explain all the causes of my having been left so much to
+myself. She didn't pretend to understand it altogether.
+
+'Your grandmamma will put it all right to you, herself, when she sees
+well to do so,' she said. 'She has just made one mistake, Miss Helena,
+it seems to me--she has credited you with more sense than perhaps should
+be expected of a child.'
+
+I didn't like this, and I felt my cheeks grow red.
+
+'More sense,' repeated Kezia, 'and she has trusted you too much. It
+should have pleased you to be looked on like that, and if you'd been a
+little older it would have done so. The idea that you could think she
+had left off caring for you would have seemed to her simply impossible.
+She has trusted you too much, and you, Miss Helena, have not trusted her
+at all.'
+
+'But you're forgetting, Kezia, what I heard myself, with my own ears,
+about sending me away to school, and how little she seemed to care.'
+
+Kezia smiled, rather sadly.
+
+'My dearie,' she said, 'I have not served Mrs. Wingfield all the years I
+have, not to know her better than that. I daresay you'll never know,
+unless you live to be a mother and grandmother yourself, what the
+thought of parting with you was costing her, at the very time she spoke
+so quietly.'
+
+'But when I fell downstairs,' I persisted, 'she seemed so vexed with me,
+and then--oh! for days and days before that, I had hardly seen her.'
+
+Kezia looked pained.
+
+'Yes, my dear, it must have been hard for you, but harder for your
+grandmamma. There are times in life when all does seem to be going the
+wrong way. And very likely being so very troubled and anxious herself,
+about you as well as about other things, made your grandmamma appear
+less kind than usual.'
+
+Kezia stopped and hesitated a little.
+
+'I think as things are,' she said, 'I can't be doing wrong in telling
+you a little more than you know. I am sure my dear lady will forgive me
+if I make a mistake in doing so, seeing she has not told you more
+herself, no doubt for the best of reasons.'
+
+She stopped again. I felt rather frightened.
+
+'What do you mean, Kezia?' I said.
+
+'It is about Mrs. Vandeleur. Do you know, my dear Miss Helena, that it
+has just been touch and go these last days, if she was to live or die?'
+
+'Oh, Kezia!' I exclaimed; 'no, I didn't know it was as bad as that,' and
+the tears--unselfish, unbitter tears this time--rushed into my eyes as I
+remembered the sweet white face that I had seen in grandmamma's room,
+and the gentle voice that had tried to say something kind and loving to
+me. 'Oh, Kezia, I wish I had known. Do you think it will have hurt her,
+my peeping into the room yesterday?' for I had told my old nurse
+_everything_.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+'No, my dear, I don't think so. She is going to get really better now,
+they feel sure--as sure as it is ever _right_ to feel about such things,
+I mean. Only yesterday morning I had a letter from your grandmamma,
+saying so. She meant to tell you soon, all about the great anxiety there
+had been--once it was over--she had been afraid of grieving and alarming
+you. So, dear Miss Helena, if you had just been patient a _little_
+longer----'
+
+My tears were dropping fast now, but still I was not quite softened.
+
+'All the same, Kezia,' I said, 'they meant to send me to school.'
+
+'Well, my dear, if they had, it might have been really for your
+happiness. You would have been sent nowhere that was not as good and
+nice a school as could be. And, of course, though Mrs. Vandeleur has
+turned the corner in a wonderful way, she will be delicate for
+long--perhaps never quite strong, and the life is lonely for you.'
+
+'I wouldn't mind,' I said, for the sight of sweet Cousin Agnes had made
+me feel as if I would do anything for her. 'I wouldn't mind, if
+grandmamma trusted me, and if I could feel she loved me as much as she
+used. I would do my lessons alone, or go to a day-school or anything, if
+only I felt happy again with grandmamma.'
+
+'My dearie, there is no need for you to feel anything else.'
+
+'Oh yes--there is _now_, even if there wasn't before,' I said,
+miserably. 'Think of what I have done. Even if grandmamma forgave me for
+coming away here, Cousin Cosmo would not--he is _so_ stern, Kezia. He
+really is--you know Harry and Lindsay thought so--Gerard Nestor told us,
+and though Harry won't speak against him, I can see he doesn't care for
+him.'
+
+'Perhaps they have not got to know each other,' suggested Kezia. 'Master
+Harry is a dear boy; but so was Mr. Cosmo long ago--I can't believe his
+whole nature has changed.'
+
+Then another thought struck me.
+
+'Kezia,' I said, 'I think grandmamma might have told me about the boys
+being here. She used to tell me far littler things than that. And in a
+sort of a way I think I had a right to know. Windy Gap is my home.'
+
+'It was all settled in a hurry,' said Kezia. 'The school broke up
+suddenly through some cases of fever, and poor Mr. Vandeleur was much
+put about to know where to send the young gentlemen. He couldn't have
+them in London, with Mrs. Vandeleur so ill, and your grandmamma was very
+glad to have the cottage free, and me here to do for them. No doubt she
+would have told you about it. I'm glad for your sake they are here.
+They'll be nice company for you.'
+
+Her words brought home to me the actual state of things.
+
+'Do you think grandmamma will let me stay here a little?' I said. 'I'm
+afraid she will not--and even if _she_ would, Cousin Cosmo will be so
+angry, _he_'ll prevent it. I am quite sure they will send me to
+school.'
+
+'But what was the use of you coming here then, Miss Helena,' said Kezia,
+sensibly, 'if you knew you would be sent to school after all?'
+
+'Oh,' I said,'I didn't think very much about anything except getting
+away. I--I thought grandmamma would just be glad to be rid of the
+trouble of me, and that they'd leave me here till Mrs. Vandeleur was
+better and grandmamma could come home again.'
+
+Kezia did not answer at once. Then she said--
+
+'Do you dislike London so very much, then, Miss Helena?'
+
+'Oh no,' I replied. 'I was very happy alone with grandmamma, except for
+always thinking they were coming, and fancying she didn't--that she was
+beginning not to care for me. But--I _am_ sorry now, Kezia, for not
+having trusted her.'
+
+'That's right, my dear; and you'll show it by giving in cheerfully to
+whatever your dear grandmamma thinks best for you?'
+
+I was still crying--but quite quietly.
+
+'I'll--I'll try,' I whispered.
+
+When I was dressed I went downstairs, not sorry to feel I should find
+the boys there. And in spite of the fears as to the future that were
+hanging over me I managed to spend a happy day with them. They did
+everything they could to cheer me up, and the more I saw of Harry the
+more I began to realise how very, very much brighter a life mine had
+been than his--how ungrateful I had been and how selfish. It was worse
+for him than for Lindsay, who was quite a child, and who looked to Harry
+for everything. And yet Harry made no complaints--he only said once or
+twice, when we were talking about grandmamma, that he did wish she was
+_their_ grandmother, too.
+
+'Wasn't that old lady you lived with before like a grandmother?' I
+asked.
+
+Harry shook his head.
+
+'We scarcely ever saw her,' he said. 'She was very old and ill, and even
+when we did go to her for the holidays we only saw her to say
+good-morning and good-night. On the whole we were glad to stay on at
+school.'
+
+Poor fellows--they had indeed been orphans.
+
+We wandered about the little garden, and all my old haunts. But for my
+terrible anxiety, I should have enjoyed it thoroughly.
+
+'Harry,' I said, when we had had our dinner--a very nice dinner, by the
+bye. I began to think grandmamma must have got rich, for there was a
+feeling of prosperity about the cottage--fires in several rooms, and
+everything so comfortable. 'Harry, what do you think I should do? Should
+I write to grandmamma and tell her--that I am very sorry, and that--that
+I'll be good about going to school, if she fixes to send me?'
+
+The tears came back again, but still I said it firmly.
+
+'I think,' said Harry, 'you had better wait till to-morrow.'
+
+He did not tell me of Mr. Vandeleur's telegram--for he had been desired
+not to do so. I should have been still more uneasy and nervous if I had
+known my formidable cousin was actually on his way to Middlemoor!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+'HAPPY EVER SINCE'
+
+
+Later in the afternoon--about three o'clock or so--Harry looked at his
+watch and started up. We were sitting in the drawing-room talking
+quietly--Harry had been asking me about my lessons and finding out how
+far on I was, for I was a little tired still, and we had been running
+about a good deal in the morning.
+
+'Oh,' I said, in a disappointed tone, 'where are you going? If you would
+wait a little while, I could come out with you again, I am sure.' For I
+felt as if I did not want to lose any of the time we were together, and
+of course I did not know how soon grandmamma might not send some one to
+take me away to school.
+
+And never since Sharley and the others had gone away had I had the
+pleasure of companions of my own age. There was something about Harry
+which reminded me of Sharley, though he was a boy--something so strong
+and straightforward and _big_, no other word seems to say it so well.
+
+Harry looked at me with a little smile. Dear Harry, I know now that he
+was feeling even more anxious about me than I was for myself, and that
+brave as he was, it took all his courage to do as he had determined--I
+mean to plead my cause with his stern guardian. For Mr. Vandeleur was
+almost as much a stranger to him as to me.
+
+'I'm afraid I must,' he said, 'I have to go to Middlemoor, but I shall
+not be away more than an hour and a half. Lindsay--you'll look after
+Helena, and Helena will look after you and prevent you getting into
+mischief while I'm away.'
+
+For though Lindsay was a very good little boy, and not wild or rough, he
+was rather unlucky. I never saw any one like him for tumbling and
+bumping himself and tearing his clothes.
+
+After Harry had gone, Lindsay got out their stamp album and we amused
+ourselves with it very well for more than an hour, as there were a good
+many new stamps to put into their proper places. Then Kezia came in--
+
+'Miss Helena,' she said, 'would you and Master Lindsay mind going into
+the other room? I want to tidy this one up a little, I was so long
+talking with you this morning that I dusted it rather hurriedly.'
+
+We had made a litter, certainly, with the gum-pot and scraps of paper,
+and cold water for loosening the stamps, but we soon cleared it up.
+
+'Isn't it nearly tea-time?' I said.
+
+'Yes, you shall have it as soon as Master Harry comes in,' said Kezia,
+'it is all laid in the dining-room.'
+
+'Oh, well,' said Lindsay, 'we won't do any more stamps this afternoon;
+come along then, Helena, we'll tell each other stories for a change.'
+
+'You may tell me stories,' I said--'and I'll try to listen,' I added to
+myself, 'though I don't feel as if I could,' for as the day went on I
+felt myself growing more and more frightened and uneasy. 'I wish Harry
+would come in,' I said aloud, 'I think I should write to grandmamma
+to-day.'
+
+'He won't be long,' said Lindsay, 'Harry always keeps to his time,' and
+then he began his stories. I'm afraid I don't remember what they were.
+There were a great many 'you see's' and 'and so's,' but at another time
+I daresay I would have found them interesting.
+
+He was just in the middle of one, about a trick some of the boys had
+played an undermaster at their school, when I heard the front door open
+quietly and steps cross the hall. The steps were of more than one
+person, though no one was speaking.
+
+'Stop, Lindsay,' I said, and I sat bolt up in my chair and listened.
+
+Whoever it was had gone into the drawing-room. Then some one came out
+again and crossed to the kitchen.
+
+'Can it be Harry?' I said.
+
+'There's some one with him if it is,' said Lindsay.
+
+I felt myself growing white, and Lindsay grew red with sympathy. He _is_
+a very feeling boy. But we both sat quite still. Then the door opened
+gently, and some one looked in, but it wasn't Harry, it was Kezia.
+
+'Miss Helena, my love,' she said, 'there's some one in the drawing-room
+who wants to see you.'
+
+'Who is it?' I asked, breathlessly, but my old nurse shook her head.
+
+'You'll see,' she said.
+
+My heart began to beat with the hope--a silly, wild hope it was, for of
+course I might have known she could not yet have left Cousin Agnes--that
+it might be grandmamma. And, luckily perhaps, for without it I should
+not have had courage to enter the drawing-room, this idea lasted till I
+had opened the door, and it was too late to run away.
+
+How I did wish I could do so you will easily understand, when I tell you
+that the tall figure standing looking out of the window, which turned as
+I came in, was that of my stern Cousin Cosmo himself!
+
+I must have got very white, I think, though it seemed to me as if all
+the blood in my body had rushed up into my head and was buzzing away
+there like lots and lots of bees, but I only remember saying 'Oh!' in a
+sort of agony of fear and shame. And the next thing I recollect was
+finding myself on a chair and Cousin Cosmo beside me on another, and,
+wonderful to say, he was holding my hand, which had grown dreadfully
+cold, in one of his. His grasp felt firm and protecting. I shut my eyes
+just for a moment and fancied to myself that it seemed as if papa were
+there.
+
+'But it can't last,' I thought, 'he's going to be awfully angry with me
+in a minute.'
+
+I did not speak. I sat there like a miserable little criminal, only
+judges don't generally hold prisoners' hands when they are going to
+sentence them to something very dreadful, do they? I might have thought
+of that, but I didn't. I just squeezed myself together to bear whatever
+was coming.
+
+This was what came.
+
+I heard a sort of sigh or a deep breath, and then a voice, which it
+almost seemed to me I had never heard before, said, very, very gently--
+
+'My poor little girl--poor little Helena. Have I been such an ogre to
+you?'
+
+I could _scarcely_ believe my ears--to think that it was Cousin Cosmo
+speaking to me in that way! I looked up into his face; I had really
+never seen it very well before. And now I found out that the dark,
+deep-set eyes were soft and not stern--what I had taken for hardness and
+severity had, after all, been mostly sadness and anxiety, I think.
+
+'Cousin Cosmo,' I said, 'are you going to forgive me, then? And
+grandmamma, too? _I am_ sorry for running away, but I didn't understand
+properly. I will go to school whenever you like, and not grumble.'
+
+My tears were dropping fast, but still I felt strangely soothed.
+
+'Tell me more about it all,' said Mr. Vandeleur. 'I want to understand
+from yourself all about the fancies and mistakes there have been in your
+head.'
+
+'Would you first tell me,' I said, 'how Cousin Agnes is? It was a good
+deal about her I didn't understand?'
+
+'Much, much better,' he replied, 'thank God. She is going to be almost
+well again, I hope.'
+
+And then, before I knew what I was about, I found myself in the middle
+of it all--telling him everything--the whole story of my unhappiness,
+more fully even than I had told it to Harry and Kezia, for though he did
+not say much, the few words he put in now and then showed me how
+wonderfully he understood. (Cousin Cosmo _is_ a very clever man.)
+
+And when at last I left off speaking, _he_ began and talked to me for a
+long time. I could never tell if I tried, _how_ he talked--so kindly,
+and nicely, and rightly--putting things in the right way, I mean, not
+making out it was _all_ my fault, which made me far sorrier than if he
+had laid the whole of the blame on me.
+
+I always do feel like that when people, especially big people, are
+generous in that sort of way. One thing Cousin Cosmo said at the end
+which I must tell.
+
+'We have a good deal to thank Harry for,' it was, 'both you and I,
+Helena. But for his manly, sensible way of judging the whole, we might
+never have got to understand each other, as I trust we now always shall.
+And more good has come out of it, too. I have never known Harry for what
+_he_ is, before to-day.'
+
+'I am so very glad,' I said.
+
+'Now,' said Mr. Vandeleur, looking at his watch, 'it is past five
+o'clock. I shall spend the night at the hotel at Middlemoor, but I
+should like to stay with you three here, as late as possible. Do you
+think your good Kezia can give me something to eat?'
+
+'Of course she can,' I said, all my hospitable feelings awakened--for I
+can never feel but that Windy Gap is my particular home--'Shall I go and
+ask her? Our tea must be ready now in the dining-room.'
+
+'That will do capitally,' said Cousin Cosmo. 'I'll have a cup of tea now
+with you three, in the first place, and then as long as the daylight
+lasts you must show me the lions of Windy Gap, Helena. It _is_ a quaint
+little place,' he added, looking round, 'and I am sure it must have a
+great charm of its own, but I am afraid my aunt and you must have found
+it very cold and exposed in bad weather?'
+
+'Sometimes,' I said; 'the last winter here was pretty bad.'
+
+'Yes,' he answered, 'it is not a place for the middle of winter,' but
+that was all he said.
+
+I was turning to leave the room when another thought struck me.
+
+'Cousin Cosmo,' I asked timidly, 'will grandmamma want me to go to
+school very soon?'
+
+He smiled, rather a funny smile.
+
+'Put it out of your mind till I go back to London, and talk things
+over,' he replied. 'I want all of us to be as happy as possible this
+evening. Send Harry in here for a moment.'
+
+I met Harry outside in the hall.
+
+'Is it all right?' he said, anxiously.
+
+'Oh, Harry,' I said, 'I can scarcely believe he's the same! He's been so
+awfully kind.'
+
+That evening _was_ a very happy one. Cousin Cosmo was interested about
+everything at Windy Gap, and after supper he talked to Harry and me of
+all sorts of things, and promised to send us down some books, which
+pleased me, as it did seem as if he must mean me to stay where I was
+for a few days at any rate.
+
+Still, I did not feel, of course, quite at rest till I had written a
+long, long letter to grandmamma and heard from her in return. I need not
+repeat all she said about what had passed--it just made me feel more
+than ever ashamed of having doubted her and of having been so selfish.
+
+But what she said at the end of her letter about the plans she and
+Cousin Cosmo had been making was almost too delightful. I could scarcely
+help jumping with joy when I read it.
+
+'Harry,' I called out, 'I'm not to go to school at all, just fancy! I'm
+to stay here with you and Lindsay till you go back to school--till a few
+days before, I mean, and we're to travel to London together and be all
+at Chichester Square. Cousin Agnes and grandmamma are going away to the
+sea-side now immediately, but they'll be back before we come. Cousin
+Agnes is so much better!'
+
+Harry did not look quite as pleased as I was--about the London part of
+it.
+
+'I'm awfully glad you're going to stay here,' he answered; 'and I do
+want to see your grandmother. I suppose it'll be all right,' he went
+on, 'and that they won't find Lindsay and me a nuisance in London.'
+
+I was almost vexed with him.
+
+'Harry,' I said, 'don't _you_ begin to be fanciful. You don't _know_ how
+Cousin Cosmo spoke of you the other day.'
+
+And after all it did come all right. My story finishes up like a
+fairy-tale--'They lived happy ever after!'
+
+Well no, not quite that, for it is not yet four years since all this
+happened, and four years would be a very short 'ever after.'
+
+But I may certainly say we have lived most happily ever since that time
+till now.
+
+Cousin Agnes is much, much better. She never will be quite strong--never
+a very strong person, I mean. But she is _so_ sweet, our boys and I
+often think we should scarcely like her to be any different in any way
+from what she is, though of course not really ill or suffering.
+
+And 'our boys'--yes, that is what they are--dear brothers to me, just
+like real ones, and just like grandsons to dear, dear grandmamma. They
+come to Chichester Square regularly for their holidays--it is their
+'new home,' as it is mine. But we have another home--and it is not much
+of the holidays except the Christmas ones that we--grandmamma and we
+three--spend in London.
+
+For Windy Gap is still ours--and Kezia lives there and is always ready
+to have us--and Cousin Cosmo has built on two or three more rooms, and
+our summers there are just _perfect_!
+
+The Nestors came back to Moor Court long ago, and I see almost as much
+of them as in the old days, as they now come to their London house every
+year for some months, and we go to several classes together, though I
+have a daily governess as well.
+
+Next year Sharley is to 'come out.' Just fancy! I am sure every one will
+think her very pretty. But not many can know as well as I do that her
+face only tells a very small part of her beauty. She is so very, very
+good.
+
+I daresay you will wonder how Cousin Cosmo--grave, stern Cousin
+Cosmo--likes it all. His quiet solemn house the home of three adopted
+children, who are certainly not solemn, and not always 'quiet' by any
+means.
+
+I can only tell you that he said to grandmamma not very long ago, and
+she told me, and I told Harry--that he had 'never been so happy since he
+was a boy himself,' all but a son to her and a brother to 'Paul'--that
+was my father, you know.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My New Home, by Mary Louisa Molesworth
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of My New Home, by Mrs Molesworth.
+    </title>
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My New Home, by Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My New Home
+
+Author: Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
+Illustrator: L. Leslie Brooke
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26310]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NEW HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Annie McGuire, Lindy Walsh and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="box">
+<p class="center">Transcriber's Note</p>
+
+<p>Spelling, punctuation and inconsistencies
+in the original book have been retained.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;"><a name="ICOVER" id="ICOVER"></a>
+<img src="images/icover.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>MY NEW HOME</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 321px;"><a name="I005" id="I005"></a>
+<img src="images/i005.jpg" width="321" height="500" alt="&#39;I&#39;d like to know your sisters that are as little as me&#39;s
+names.&#39;&mdash;p. 39." title="" />
+<span class="caption">&#39;I&#39;d like to know your sisters that are as little as me&#39;s
+names.&#39;&mdash;p. 39. <i>Front.</i></span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 324px;"><a name="I006" id="I006"></a>
+<img src="images/i006.jpg" width="324" height="500" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>MY NEW HOME</h1>
+
+<h2>by Mrs Molesworth</h2>
+
+<h3>Illustrated by</h3>
+<h2>L Leslie Brooke</h2>
+
+<h3>Macmillan and Co</h3>
+<h3>London: 1894</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='cen'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER I</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Windy Gap</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER II</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">At the Foot of the Ladder</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">15</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER III</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">One and Seven</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">28</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER IV</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">New Friends and a Plan</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">43</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER V</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Happy Day</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">58</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER VI</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>'<span class="smcap">Waving View</span>'</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">71</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER VII</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Beginning of Troubles</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">83</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Two Letters</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">96</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER IX</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Great Change</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">111</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER X</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">No. 29 Chichester Square</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">125</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER XI</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Arrival</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">139</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER XII</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Catastrophe</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">153</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Harry</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">168</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Kezia's Counsel</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">183</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'><h3>CHAPTER XV</h3></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>'<span class="smcap">Happy ever since</span>'</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">195</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>'I'd like to know your sisters that are as little as
+me's names.'</td><td align='right'><a href="#I005"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated, so the next hour was spent very happily.</td><td align='right'><a href="#I079">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>'I do wonder why they are so late'.</td><td align='right'><a href="#I096">82</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed respectfully to grandmamma.</td><td align='right'><a href="#I142">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>It was the portrait of a young girl.</td><td align='right'><a href="#I157">139</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the first.</td><td align='right'><a href="#I180">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>It was all uphill too.</td><td align='right'><a href="#I195">173</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>WINDY GAP</h3>
+
+<p>My name is Helena, and I am fourteen past. I have two other Christian
+names; one of them is rather queer. It is 'Naomi.' I don't mind having
+it, as I am never called by it, but I don't sign it often because it is
+such an odd name. My third name is not uncommon. It is just 'Charlotte.'
+So my whole name is 'Helena Charlotte Naomi Wingfield.'</p>
+
+<p>I have never been called by any short name, like 'Lena,' or 'Nellie.' I
+think the reason must be that I am an only child. I have never had any
+big brother to shout out 'Nell' all over the house, or dear baby sisters
+who couldn't say 'Helena' properly. And what seems still sadder than
+having no brothers or sisters, I have never had a mother that I could
+remember. For mamma died when I was not much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> more than a year old, and
+papa six months before that.</p>
+
+<p>But my history has not been as sad as you might think from this. I was
+very happy indeed when I was quite a little child. Till I was nine years
+old I really did not know what troubles were, for I lived with
+grandmamma, and she made up to me for everything I had not got: we loved
+each other so very dearly.</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you about our life.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma was not at all the sort of person most children think of when
+they hear of a grandmother in a story. She was not old, with white hair
+and spectacles and always a shawl on, even in the house, and very
+old-fashioned in her ways. She did wear caps, at least I <i>think</i> she
+always did, for, of course, she was not <i>young</i>. But her hair was very
+nicely done under them, and they were pretty fluffy things. She made
+them herself, and she made a great many other things herself&mdash;for me
+too. For, you will perhaps wonder more than ever at my saying what a
+happy child I was, when I tell you that we were really <i>very</i> poor.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you exactly how much or how little we had to live upon,
+and <i>most</i> children would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> understand any the better if I did. For a
+hundred pounds a year even, sounds a great deal to a child, and yet it
+is very little indeed for one lady by herself to live upon, and of
+course still less for two people. And I don't think we had much more
+than that. Grandmamma told me when I grew old enough to understand
+better, that when I first came to live with her, after both papa and
+mamma were dead, and she found that there was no money for me&mdash;that was
+not poor papa's fault; he had done all that could be done, but the money
+was lost by other people's wrong-doing&mdash;well, as I was saying, when
+grandmamma found how it was, she thought over about doing something to
+make more. She was very clever in many ways; she could speak several
+languages, and she knew a lot about music, though she had given up
+playing, and she might have begun a school as far as her cleverness
+went. But she had no savings to furnish a large enough house with, and
+she did not know of any pupils. She could not bear the thought of
+parting with me, otherwise she might perhaps have gone to be some grand
+sort of housekeeper, which even quite, <i>quite</i> ladies are sometimes, or
+she might have joined somebody in having a shop. But after a lot of
+thinking, she settled she would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> rather try to live on what she had, in
+some quiet, healthy, country place, though I believe she did earn some
+money by doing beautiful embroidery work, for I remember seeing her make
+lovely things which were never used in our house. This could not have
+gone on for long, however, as granny's eyes grew weak, and then I think
+she did no sewing except making our own clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Now I must tell you about our home. It was quite a strange place to
+grandmamma when we first came there, but <i>I</i> can never feel as if it had
+been so. For it was the first place I can remember, as I was only a year
+old, or a little more&mdash;and children very seldom remember anything before
+they are three&mdash;when we settled down at Windy Gap.</p>
+
+<p>That was the name of our cottage. It is a nice breezy name, isn't it?
+though it does sound rather cold. And in some ways it <i>was</i> cold, at
+least it was windy, and quite suited its name, though at some seasons of
+the year it was very calm and sheltered. Sheltered on two sides it
+always was, for it stood in a sort of nest a little way up the
+Middlemoor Hills, with high ground on the north and on the east, so that
+the only winds really to be feared could never do us much harm. It was
+more a nest than a 'gap,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> for inside, it was so cosy, so very cosy,
+even in winter. The walls were nice and thick, built of rather
+gloomy-looking, rough gray stone, and the windows were deep&mdash;deep enough
+to have window-seats in them, where granny and I used often to sit with
+our books or work, as the inner part of the rooms, owing to the shape of
+the windows, was rather dark, and the rooms of course were small.</p>
+
+<p>We had a little drawing-room, which we always sat in, and a still
+smaller dining-room, which was very nice, though in reality it was more
+a kitchen than a dining-room. It had a neat kitchen range and an oven,
+and some things had to be cooked there, though there was another little
+kitchen across the passage where our servant Kezia did all the messy
+work&mdash;peeling potatoes, and washing up, and all those sorts of things,
+you know. The dining-room-kitchen was used as little as possible for
+cooking, and grandmamma was so very, very neat and particular that it
+was almost as pretty and cosy as the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs there were three bedrooms&mdash;a good-sized one for grandmamma, a
+smaller one beside it for me, and a still smaller one with a rather
+sloping roof for Kezia. The house is very easy to understand, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> see,
+for it was just three and three, three upstairs rooms over three
+downstairs ones. But there was rather a nice little entrance hall, or
+closed-in porch, and the passages were pretty wide. So it did not seem
+at all a poky or stuffy house though it was so small. Indeed, one could
+scarcely fancy a 'Windy Gap Cottage' anything but fresh and airy, could
+one?</p>
+
+<p>I was never tired of hearing the story of the day that grandmamma first
+came to Middlemead to look for a house. She told it me so often that I
+seem to know all about it just as if I had been with her, instead of
+being a stupid, helpless little baby left behind with my nurse&mdash;Kezia
+was my nurse then&mdash;while poor granny had to go travelling all about,
+house-hunting by herself!</p>
+
+<p>What made her first think of Middlemead she has never been able to
+remember. She did not know any one there, and she had never been there
+in her life. She fancies it was that she had read in some book or
+advertisement perhaps, that it was so very healthy, and dear
+grandmamma's one idea was to make me as strong as she could; for I was
+rather a delicate child. But for me, indeed, I don't think she would
+have cared where she lived, or to live at all, except that she was so
+very good.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'As long as any one is left alive,' she has often said to me, 'it shows
+that there is something for them to be or to do in the world, and they
+must try to find out what it is.'</p>
+
+<p>But there was not much difficulty for grandmamma to find out what <i>her</i>
+principal use in the world was to be! It was all ready indeed&mdash;it was
+poor, little, puny, delicate, helpless <i>me</i>!</p>
+
+<p>So very likely it was as she thought&mdash;just the hearing how splendidly
+healthy the place was&mdash;that made her travel down to Middlemead in those
+early spring days, that first sad year after mamma's death, to look for
+a nest for her little fledgling. She arrived there in pretty good
+spirits; she had written to a house-agent and had got the names of two
+or three 'to let' houses, which she at once tramped off from the station
+to look at, for she was very anxious not to spend a penny more than she
+could help. But, oh dear, how her spirits went down! The houses were
+dreadful; one was a miserable sort of genteel cottage in a row of others
+all exactly the same, with lots of messy-looking children playing about
+in the untidy strips of garden in front. <i>That</i> would certainly not do,
+for even if the house itself had been the least nice, grandmamma felt
+sure I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> would catch measles and scarlet-fever and hooping-cough every
+two or three days! The next one was a still more genteel 'semi-detached'
+villa, but it was very badly built, the walls were like paper, and it
+faced north and east, and had been standing empty, no doubt, for these
+reasons, for years. <i>It</i> would not do. Then poor granny plodded back to
+the house agent's again. He isn't only a house agent, he has a
+stationer's and bookseller's shop, and his name is Timbs. I know him
+quite well. He is rather a nice man, and though she was a stranger of
+course, he seemed sorry for grandmamma's disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>'There are several very good little houses that I am sure you would
+like,' he said to her, 'and one or two of them are very small&mdash;but it is
+the rent. For though Middlemead is scarcely more than a village it is
+much in repute for its healthiness, and the rents are rising.'</p>
+
+<p>'What are the rents of the smallest of the houses you speak of?'
+grandmamma asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Forty pounds is the cheapest,'.Mr. Timbs answered, 'and the situation
+of that is not so good. Rather low and chilly in winter, and somewhat
+lonely.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't mind about the loneliness,' said grandmamma,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> 'but a low or
+damp situation would never do.'</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Timbs was looking over his lists as she spoke. Her words seemed to
+strike him, and he suddenly peered up through his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't mind about loneliness,' he repeated. 'Then I wonder&mdash;&mdash;' and
+he turned over the leaves of his book quickly. 'There <i>is</i> another house
+to let,' he said; 'to tell the truth I had forgotten about it, for it
+has never been to let unfurnished before; and it would be considered too
+lonely for all the year round by most people.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are there no houses near?' asked grandmamma. 'I don't fancy Middlemead
+is the sort of place where one need fear burglars, and besides,' she
+went on with a little smile, 'we should not have much of value to steal.
+The silver plate that I have I shall leave for the most part in London.
+But in case of sudden illness or any alarm of that kind, I should not
+like to be out of reach of everybody.'</p>
+
+<p>'There are two or three small cottages close to the little house I am
+thinking of,' said Mr. Timbs, 'and the people in them are very
+respectable. I leave the key with one of them.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he went on to tell grandmamma exactly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> where it was, how to get
+there, and all about it, and with every word, dear granny said her
+heart grew lighter and lighter. She really began to hope she had found
+a nest for her poor little homeless bird&mdash;that was <i>me</i>, you
+understand&mdash;especially when Mr. Timbs finished up by saying that the
+rent was only twelve pounds a year, one pound a month. And she <i>had</i>
+made up her mind to give as much as twenty pounds if she could find
+nothing nice and healthy for less.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at her watch; yes, there was still time to go to see Windy
+Gap Cottage and yet get back to the station in time for the train she
+had fixed to go back by&mdash;that is to say, if she took a fly. She has
+often told me how she stood and considered about that fly. Was it worth
+while to go to the expense? Yes, she decided it was, for after all if
+she found nothing to suit us at Middlemead she would have to set off on
+her travels again to house-hunt somewhere else. It would be penny wise
+and pound foolish to save that fly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Timbs seemed pleased when she said she would go at once&mdash;I suppose
+so many people go to house agents asking about houses which they never
+take, that when anybody comes who is quite in earnest they feel like a
+fisherman when he has really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> hooked a fish. He grew quite eager and
+excited and said he would go with the lady himself, if she would allow
+him to take a seat beside the driver to save time. And of course granny
+was very glad for him to come.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting towards evening when she saw Windy Gap for the first
+time, and it happened to be a very still evening&mdash;the name hardly seemed
+suitable, and she said so to Mr. Timbs. He smiled and shook his head and
+answered that he only hoped if she did come there to live that she would
+not find the name <i>too</i> suitable. Still, though there was a good deal of
+wind to be <i>heard</i>, he went on to explain that the cottage was, as I
+have already said, well sheltered on the cold sides, and also well and
+strongly built.</p>
+
+<p>'None of your "paper-mashy," one brick thick, run-up-to-tumble-down
+houses,' said Mr. Timbs with satisfaction, which was certainly quite
+true.</p>
+
+<p>The end of it was, as of course you know already, that grandmamma fixed
+to take it. She talked it all over with Mr. Timbs, who 'made notes,' and
+promised to write to her about one or two things that could not be
+settled at once, and then 'with a very thankful heart,' as she always
+says when she talks of that day, she drove away again off to the
+station.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was just beginning to think about setting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> when she walked down
+the little steep garden path and a short way over the rough, hill
+cart-track&mdash;for nothing on wheels can come quite close up to the gate of
+Windy Gap&mdash;and already she could see what a beautiful show there was
+going to be over there in the west. She stood still for a minute to look
+at it.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, madam,' said old Timbs, though she had not spoken, 'yes, that is a
+sight worth adding a five pound note on to the rent of the cottage for,
+in my opinion. The sunsets here are something wonderful, and there's no
+house better placed for seeing them than Windy Gap. "Sunset View" it
+might have been called, I have often thought.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can quite believe what you say,' grandmamma replied, 'and I am very
+glad to have had a glimpse of it on this first visit.'</p>
+
+<p>Many and many a time since then have we sat or stood together there,
+granny and I, watching the sun's good-night. I think she must have begun
+to teach me to look at it while I was still almost a baby. For these
+wonderful sunsets seem mixed up in my mind with the very first things I
+can remember. And still more with the most solemn and beautiful thoughts
+I have ever had. I always fancied when I was <i>very</i> tiny that if only we
+could have pushed away the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> long low stretch of hills which prevented
+our seeing the very last of the dear sun, we should have had an actual
+peep into heaven, or at least that we should have seen the golden gates
+leading there. And I never watched the sun set without sending a message
+by him to papa and mamma. Only in my own mind, of course. I never told
+grandmamma about it for years and years. But I did feel sure he went
+there every night and that the beautiful colours had to do with that
+somehow.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma felt as if the lovely glow in the sky was a sort of good omen
+for our life at Windy Gap, and she felt happier on her journey back in
+the railway that evening than she had done since papa and mamma died.</p>
+
+<p>She told Kezia and me all about it&mdash;you will be amused at my saying she
+told <i>me</i>, for of course I was only a baby and couldn't understand. But
+she used to fancy I <i>did</i> understand a little, and she got into the way
+of talking to me when we were alone together especially, almost as if
+she was thinking aloud. I cannot remember the time when she didn't talk
+to me 'sensibly,' and perhaps that made me a little old for my age.
+Granny says I used to grow quite grave when she talked seriously, and
+that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> would laugh and crow with pleasure when she seemed bright and
+happy. And this made her try more than anything else to <i>be</i> bright and
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, dear grandmamma&mdash;how very, exceedingly unselfish she was! For I
+now see what a really sad life most people would have thought hers. All
+her dearest ones gone; her husband, her son and her son's wife&mdash;mamma, I
+mean&mdash;whom she had loved nearly, if not quite as much, as if she had
+been her own daughter; and she left behind when she was getting old, to
+take care of one tiny little baby girl&mdash;and to be so poor, too. I don't
+think even now I quite understand her goodness, but every day I am
+getting to see it more and more, even though at one time I was both
+ungrateful and very silly, as you will hear before you come to the end
+of this little history.</p>
+
+<p>And now that I have explained as well as I can about grandmamma and
+myself, and how and why we came to live in the funny little gray stone
+cottage perched up among the Middlemoor Hills, I will go on with what I
+can remember myself; for up till now, you see, all I have written has
+been what was told to me by other people, especially of course by
+granny.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER</h3>
+
+<p>No, perhaps I was rather hasty in saying I could now go straight on
+about what I remember myself. There are still a few things belonging to
+the time before I can remember, which I had better explain now, to keep
+it all in order.</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of grandmamma as being alone in the world, and so she
+was&mdash;as far as having no one <i>very</i> near her&mdash;no other children, and not
+any brothers or sisters of her own. And on my mother's side I had no
+relations worth counting. Mamma was an only child, and her father had
+married again after <i>her</i> mother died, and then, some years after, he
+died himself, and mamma's half-brothers and sisters had never even seen
+her, as they were out in India. So none of her relations have anything
+to do with my story or with <i>me</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But grandmamma had one nephew whom she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> been very fond of when he
+was a boy, and whom she had seen a good deal of, as he and papa were at
+school together. His name was not the same as ours, for he was the son
+of a sister of grandpapa's, not of a brother. It was Vandeleur, Mr.
+Cosmo Vandeleur.</p>
+
+<p>He was abroad when our great troubles came&mdash;I forget where, for though
+he was not a soldier, he moved about the world a good deal to all sorts
+of out-of-the-way places, and very often for months and months together,
+grandmamma never heard anything about him. And one of the things that
+made her still lonelier and sadder when we first came to Windy Gap was
+that he had never answered her letters, or written to her for a very
+long time.</p>
+
+<p>She thought it was impossible that he had not got her letters, and
+almost more impossible that he had not seen poor papa's death in some of
+the newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>And as it happened he had seen it and he had written to her once,
+anyway, though she never got the letter. He had troubles of his own that
+he did not say very much about, for he had married a good while ago, and
+though his wife was very nice, she was very, <i>very</i> delicate.</p>
+
+<p>Still, his name was familiar to me. I can always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> remember hearing
+grandmamma talk of 'Cosmo,' and when she told me little anecdotes of
+papa as a boy, his cousin was pretty sure to come into the story.</p>
+
+<p>And Kezia used to speak of him too&mdash;'Master Cosmo,' she always called
+him. For she had been a young under-servant of grandmamma's long ago,
+when grandpapa was alive and before the money was lost.</p>
+
+<p>That is one thing I want to say&mdash;that though Kezia was our only servant,
+she was not at all common or rough. She turned herself into what is
+called 'a maid-of-all-work,' from being my nurse, just out of love for
+granny and me. And she was very good and very kind. Since I have grown
+older and have seen more of other children and how they live, I often
+think how much better off I was than most, even though my home was only
+a cottage and we lived so simply, and even poorly, in some ways.
+Everything was so open and happy about my life. I was not afraid of
+anybody or anything. And I have known children who, though their parents
+were very rich and they lived very grandly, had really a great deal to
+bear from cross or unkind nurses or maids, whom they were frightened to
+complain of. For children, unless they are <i>very</i> spoilt, are not so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+ready to complain as big people think. I had nothing to complain of, but
+if I had had anything, it would have been easy to tell grandmamma all
+about it at once; it would never have entered my head not to tell her.
+She knew everything about me, and I knew everything about her that it
+was good for me to know while I was still so young&mdash;more, perhaps, than
+some people would think a child should know&mdash;about our not having much
+money and needing to be careful, and things like that. But it did not do
+me any harm. Children don't take <i>that</i> kind of trouble to heart. I was
+proud of being treated sensibly, and of feeling that in many little ways
+I could help her as I could not have done if she had not explained.</p>
+
+<p>And if ever there was anything she did not tell me about, even the
+keeping it back was done in an open sort of way. Granny made no
+mysteries. She would just say simply&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I cannot tell you, my dear,' or 'You could not understand about it at
+present.'</p>
+
+<p>So that I trusted her&mdash;'always,' I was going to say, but, alas, there
+came a time when I did not trust her enough, and from that great fault
+of mine came all the troubles I ever had.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Now</i> I will go straight on.</p>
+
+<p>Have you ever looked back and tried to find out what is really the very
+first thing you can remember? It is rather interesting&mdash;now and then the
+b&mdash;no, I don't mean to speak of them till they come properly into my
+story&mdash;now and then I try to look back like that, and I get a strange
+feeling that it is all there, if only I could keep hold of the thread,
+as it were. But I cannot; it melts into a mist, and the very first thing
+I <i>can</i> clearly remember stands out the same again.</p>
+
+<p>This is it.</p>
+
+<p>I see myself&mdash;those looking backs always are like pictures; you seem to
+be watching yourself, even while you feel it is yourself&mdash;I see myself,
+a little trot of a girl, in a pale gray merino frock, with a muslin
+pinafore covering me nearly all over, and a broad sash of Roman colours,
+with a good deal of pale blue in it (I have the sash still, so it isn't
+much praise to my memory to know all about <i>it</i>), tied round my waist,
+running fast down the short steep garden path to where granny is
+standing at the gate. I go faster and faster, beginning to get a little
+frightened as I feel I can't stop myself. Then granny calls out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Take care, take care, my darling,' and all in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> minute I feel
+safe&mdash;caught in her arms, and held close. It is a lovely feeling. And
+then I hear her say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My little girlie must not try to run so fast alone. She might have
+fallen and hurt herself badly if granny had not been there.'</p>
+
+<p>There is to me a sort of parable, or allegory, in that first thing I can
+remember, and I think it will seem to go on and fit into all my life,
+even if I live to be as old as grandmamma is now. It is like feeling
+that there are always arms ready to keep us safe, through all the
+foolish and even wrong things we do&mdash;if only we will trust them and run
+into them. I hope the children who <i>may</i> some day read this won't say I
+am preaching, or make fun of it. I must tell what I really have felt and
+thought, or else it would be a pretence of a story altogether. And this
+first remembrance has always stayed with me.</p>
+
+<p>Then come the sunsets. I have told you a little about them, already. I
+must often have looked at them before I can remember, but one specially
+beautiful has kept in my mind because it was on one of my birthdays.</p>
+
+<p>I think it must have been my third birthday, though granny is half
+inclined to think it was my fourth. <i>I</i> don't, because if it had been my
+fourth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> I should remember <i>some</i> things between it and my third
+birthday, and I don't&mdash;nothing at all, between the running into granny's
+arms, which she too remembers, and which was before I was three, there
+is nothing I can get hold of, till that lovely sunset.</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting at the window when it began. I was rather tired&mdash;I suppose
+I had been excited by its being my birthday, for dear granny always
+contrived to give me some extra pleasures on that day&mdash;and I remember I
+had a new doll in my lap, whom I had been undressing to be ready to be
+put to bed with me. I almost think I had fallen asleep for a minute or
+two, for it seems as if all of a sudden I had caught sight of the sky.
+It must have been particularly beautiful, for I called out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, look, look, they're lighting all the beauty candles in heaven.
+Look, Dollysweet, it's for my birfday.'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma was in the room and she heard me. But for a minute or two she
+did not say anything, and I went on talking to Dolly and pretending or
+fancying that Dolly talked back to me.</p>
+
+<p>Then granny came softly behind me and stood looking out too. I did not
+know she was there till I heard her saying some words to herself. Of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+course I did not understand them, yet the sound of them must have stayed
+in my ears. Since then I have learnt the verses for myself, and they
+always come back to me when I see anything very beautiful&mdash;like the
+trees and the flowers in summer, or the stars at night, and above all,
+lovely sunsets.</p>
+
+<p>But all I heard then was just&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 25em;">'Good beyond compare,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 21em;">If thus Thy meaner works are fair'&mdash;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and all I <i>remembered</i> was&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 21em;">'... beyond compare,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 27em;">... are fair.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I said them over and over to myself, and a funny fancy grew out of them,
+when I got to understand what 'beyond' meant. I took it into my head
+that 'compare' was the name of the hills, which, as I have said, came
+between us and the horizon on the west, and prevented our seeing the
+last of the sunset.</p>
+
+<p>And I used to make wonderful fairy stories to myself about the country
+beyond or behind those hills&mdash;the country I called 'Compare,' where
+something, or everything&mdash;for I had lost the words just before, was
+'fair' in some marvellous way I could not even picture to myself. For I
+soon learnt to know that 'fair' meant beautiful&mdash;I think I learnt it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+first from some of the old fairy stories grandmamma used to tell me when
+we sat at work.</p>
+
+<p>That evening she took me up in her arms and kissed me.</p>
+
+<p>'The sun is going to bed,' she said to me, 'and so must my little
+Helena, even though it is her birthday.'</p>
+
+<p>'And so must Dollysweet,' I said. I always called that doll
+'Dollysweet,' and I ran the words together as if it was one name.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, certainly,' said granny.</p>
+
+<p>Then she took my hand and I trotted upstairs beside her, carrying
+Dollysweet, of course. And there, up in my little room&mdash;I had already
+begun to sleep alone in my little room, though the door was always left
+open between it and grandmamma's&mdash;there, at the ending of my birthday
+was another lovely surprise. For, standing in a chair beside my cot was
+a bed for my doll&mdash;<i>so</i> pretty and cosy-looking.</p>
+
+<p>Wasn't it nice of granny? I never knew any one like her for having <i>new</i>
+sort of ideas. It made me go to bed so very, very happily, and that is
+not always the case the night of a birthday. I have known children who,
+even when they are pretty big,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> cry themselves to sleep because the
+long-looked-for day is over.</p>
+
+<p>It did not matter to me that my dolly's bed had cost nothing&mdash;except,
+indeed, what was far more really precious than money&mdash;granny's loving
+thought and work. It was made out of a strong cardboard box&mdash;the lid
+fastened to the box, standing up at one end like the head part of a
+French bed. And it was all beautifully covered with pink calico, which
+grandmamma had had 'by her.' Granny was rather old-fashioned in some
+ways, and fond of keeping a few odds and ends 'by her.' And over that
+again, white muslin, all fruzzled on, that had once been pinafores of
+mine, but had got too worn to use any more in that way.</p>
+
+<p>There were little blankets, too, worked round with pink wool, and little
+sheets, and everything&mdash;all made out of nothing but love and
+contrivance!</p>
+
+<p>It was so delightful to wake the next morning and see Dollysweet in her
+nest beside me. She slept there every night for several years, and I am
+afraid after some time she slept there a good deal in the day also. For
+I gave up playing with dolls rather young&mdash;playing with <i>a</i> doll, I
+should say. I found it more interesting to have lots of little ones,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> or
+of things that did instead of dolls&mdash;dressed-up chessmen did very well
+at one time&mdash;that I could make move about and act and be anything I
+wanted them to be, more easily than one or two big dolls.</p>
+
+<p>Still I always took care of Dollysweet. I never neglected her or let her
+get dirty and untidy, though in time, of course, her pink-and-white
+complexion faded into pallid yellow, and her bright hair grew dull, and,
+worst of all&mdash;after that I never could bear to look at her&mdash;one of her
+sky-blue eyes dropped, not out, but <i>into</i> her hollow head.</p>
+
+<p>Poor old Dollysweet!</p>
+
+<p>The day after my third birthday grandmamma began to teach me to read.
+<i>I</i> couldn't have remembered that it was that very day, but she has told
+me so. I had very short lessons, only a quarter of an hour, I think, but
+though she was very kind, she was very strict about my giving my
+attention while I was at them. She says that is the part that really
+matters with a very little child&mdash;the learning to give attention. Not
+that it would signify if the actual things learnt up to six or seven
+came to be forgotten&mdash;so long as a child knows how to learn.</p>
+
+<p>At first I liked my lessons very much, though I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> must have been a rather
+tiresome child to teach. For I would keep finding out likenesses in the
+letters, which I called 'little black things,' and I wouldn't try to
+learn their names. Grandmamma let me do this for a few days, as she
+thought it would help me to distinguish them, but when she found that
+every day I invented a new set of likenesses, she told me that wouldn't
+do.</p>
+
+<p>'You may have one likeness for each,' she said, 'but only if you really
+try to remember its name too.'</p>
+
+<p>And I knew, by the sound of her voice, that she meant what she said.</p>
+
+<p>So I set to work to fix which of the 'likes,' as I called them, I would
+keep.</p>
+
+<p>'A' had been already a house with a pointed roof, and a book standing
+open on its two sides, and a window with curtains drawn at the top, and
+the wood of the sash running across half-way, and a good many other
+things which you couldn't see any likeness to it in, I am sure. But just
+as I was staring at it again, I saw old Tanner, who lived in one of the
+cottages below our house, settling his double ladder against a wall.</p>
+
+<p>I screamed out with pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I'll have Tan's ladder,' I said, and so I did. 'A' was always Tan's
+ladder after that. And a year or two later, when I heard some one speak
+of the 'ladder of learning,' I felt quite sure it had something to do
+with the opened-out ladder with the bar across the middle.</p>
+
+<p>After all, I have had to get grandmamma's help for some of these baby
+memories. Still, as I <i>can</i> remember the little events I have now
+written down, I suppose it is all right.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>ONE AND SEVEN</h3>
+
+<p>I will go on now to the time I was about seven years old. 'Baby' stories
+are interesting to people who know the baby, or the person that once was
+the baby, but I scarcely think they are very interesting to people who
+have never seen you or never will, or, if they do, would not know it was
+you!</p>
+
+<p>All these years we had gone on quietly living at Windy Gap, without ever
+going away. Going away never came into my head, and if dear grandmamma
+sometimes wished for a little change&mdash;and, indeed, I am sure she must
+have done&mdash;she never spoke of it to me. Now and then I used to hear
+other children, for there were a few families living near us, whose
+little boys and girls I very occasionally played with, speak of going to
+the sea-side in the summer, or to stay with uncles and aunts or other
+relations in London in the winter, to see the pantomimes and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the shops.
+But it never struck me that anything of that sort could come in my way,
+not more than it ever entered my imagination that I could become a
+princess or a gipsy or anything equally impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Happy children are made like that, I think, and a very good thing it is
+for them. And I was a very happy child.</p>
+
+<p>We had our troubles, troubles that even had she wished, grandmamma could
+not have kept from me. And I do not think she did wish it. She knew that
+though the <i>background</i> of a child's life should be contented and happy,
+it would not be true teaching or true living to let it believe any life
+can be without troubles.</p>
+
+<p>One trouble was a bad illness I had when I was six&mdash;though this was
+really more of a trouble to granny and Kezia than to me. For I did not
+suffer much pain. Sometimes the illnesses that frighten children's
+friends the most do not hurt the little people themselves as much as
+less serious things.</p>
+
+<p>This illness came from a bad cold, and it <i>might</i> have left me delicate
+for always, though happily it didn't. But it made granny anxious, and
+after I got better it was a long time before she could feel easy-minded
+about letting me go out without being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> tremendously wrapped up, and
+making sure which way the wind was, and a lot of things like that, which
+are rather teasing.</p>
+
+<p>I might not have given in as well as I did had it not happened that the
+winter which came after my illness was a terribly severe one, and my own
+sense&mdash;for even between six and seven children <i>can</i> have some common
+sense&mdash;told me that nothing would be easier than to get a cough again if
+I didn't take care. So on the whole I was pretty good.</p>
+
+<p>But those months of anxiety and the great cold were very trying for
+grandmamma. Her hair got quite, <i>quite</i> white during them.</p>
+
+<p>These severe winters do not come often at Middlemoor; not very often, at
+least. We had two of them during the time we lived there, 'year in and
+year out,' as Kezia called it. But between them we had much milder ones,
+one or two quite wonderfully mild, and others middling&mdash;nothing really
+to complain of. Still, a very tiny cottage house standing by itself is
+pretty cold during the best of winters, even though the walls were
+thick. And in wet or stormy days one does get tired of very small rooms
+and few of them.</p>
+
+<p>But the year that followed that bitter winter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> brought a pleasant little
+change into my life&mdash;the first variety of the kind that had come to me.
+I made real acquaintance at last with some other children.</p>
+
+<p>This was how it began.</p>
+
+<p>I was seven, a little past seven, at the time.</p>
+
+<p>One morning I had just finished my lessons, which of course took more
+than a quarter of an hour now, and was collecting my books together, to
+put them away, when I heard a knock at the front door.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the drawing-room&mdash;<i>generally</i>, especially in winter, I did my
+lessons in the dining-room. For we never had two fires at once, and for
+that reason we sat in the dining-room in the morning if it was cold,
+though granny was most particular always to have a fire in the
+drawing-room in the afternoon. I think now it was quite wonderful how
+she managed about things like that, never to fall into irregular or
+untidy ways, for as people grow old they find it difficult to be as
+active and energetic as is easy for younger ones. It was all for my
+sake, and every day I feel more and more grateful to her for it.</p>
+
+<p>Never once in my life do I remember going into the dining-room to dinner
+without first meeting grandmamma in the drawing-room, when a glance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+would show her if my face and hands had been freshly washed and my hair
+brushed and my dress tidy, and upstairs again would I be sent in a
+twinkling if any of these matters were amiss.</p>
+
+<p>But this morning I had had my lessons in the drawing-room; to begin
+with, it was not winter now, but spring, and not a cold spring either;
+and in the second place, Kezia had been having a baking of pastry and
+cakes in the dining-room oven, and granny knew my lessons would have
+fared badly if my attention had been disturbed every time the cakes had
+to be seen to.</p>
+
+<p>I was collecting my books, I said, to carry them into the other room,
+where there was a little shelf with a curtain in front on purpose for
+them, as we only kept our nicest books in the drawing-room, when this
+rat-a-tat knock came to the door.</p>
+
+<p>I was very surprised. It was so seldom any one came to the front door in
+the morning, and, indeed, not often in the afternoon either, and this
+knock sounded sharp and important somehow. Though I was still quite a
+little girl I knew it would vex grandmamma if I tried to peep out to see
+who it was&mdash;it was one of the things she would have said 'no lady should
+ever do'&mdash;and I could not bear her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> to think I ever forgot how even a
+very small lady should behave.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing I could do was to look out of the side window, not that I
+could see the door from there, but I had a good view of the road where
+it passed the short track, too rough to call a road, leading to our own
+little gate.</p>
+
+<p>No cart or carriage could come nearer than that point; the tradesmen
+from Middlemoor always stopped there and carried up our meat or bread or
+whatever it was&mdash;not very heavy basketfuls, I suspect&mdash;to the kitchen
+door, and I used to be very fond of standing at this window, watching
+the unpacking from the carts.</p>
+
+<p>There was no cart there to-day, but what <i>was</i> there nearly took my
+breath away.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, grandmamma,' I called out, quite forgetting that by this time Kezia
+must have opened the door; 'oh, grandmamma, do look at the lovely
+carriage and ponies.'</p>
+
+<p>Granny did not answer. She had not heard me, for she was in the
+dining-room, as I might have known. But I had got into the habit of
+calling to her whenever I was pleased or excited, and generally, somehow
+or other, she managed to hear. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> I could not leave the window, I was
+so engrossed by what I saw.</p>
+
+<p>There was a girl in the carriage, to me she seemed a grown-up lady. She
+was sitting still, holding the reins. But I did not see the figure of
+another lady which by this time had got hidden by the house, as she
+followed the little groom whom she had sent on to ask if Mrs. Wingfield
+was at home, meaning at first, to wait till he came back. I heard her
+afterwards explaining to grandmamma that the boy was rather deaf and she
+was afraid he had not heard her distinctly, so she had come herself.</p>
+
+<p>And while I was still gazing at the carriage and the ponies, the
+drawing-room door, already a little ajar, was pushed wide open and I
+heard Kezia saying she would tell Mrs. Wingfield at once.</p>
+
+<p>'Mrs. Nestor; you heard my name?' said some one in a pleasant voice.</p>
+
+<p>I turned round.</p>
+
+<p>There stood a tall lady in a long dark green cloak, she had a hat on,
+not a bonnet, and I just thought of her as another lady, not troubling
+myself as to whether she was younger or older than the one in the
+carriage, though actually she was her mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was not shy. It sounds contradictory to say so, but still there is
+truth in it. I had seen too few people in my life to know anything about
+shyness. And all I ever had had to do with were kind and friendly. And I
+remembered 'my manners,' as old-fashioned folk say.</p>
+
+<p>I clambered down from the window-seat, and stroked my pinafore, which
+had got ruffled up, and came forward towards the lady, holding out my
+hand. I had no need to go far, for she had come straight in my
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, dear?' she said, and again I liked her voice, though I did not
+exactly think about it, 'and are you Mrs. Wingfield's little girl?'</p>
+
+<p>'My name is Helena Charlotte Naomi Wingfield,' I said, very gravely and
+distinctly, 'and grandmamma is Mrs. Wingfield.'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Nestor was smiling still more by this time, but she smiled in a
+nice way that did not at all give me any feeling that she was making fun
+of what I said.</p>
+
+<p>'And how old are you, my dear?&mdash;let me see, you have so many names!
+which are you called by, or have you any short name?'</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'No, only "girlie," and that is just for grandmamma to say. I am always
+called "Helena."'</p>
+
+<p>'It is a very pretty name,' said my new friend. 'And how old are you,
+Helena?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am past seven,' I said. 'My birthday comes in the spring, in March.
+Have you any little girls, and are any of them seven? I would like to
+know some little girls as big as me.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have lots,' said Mrs. Nestor. 'One of them is in the pony-carriage
+outside. I daresay you can see her from the window.'</p>
+
+<p>I think my face must have fallen.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' I said, disappointedly. 'She's a lady.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, indeed,' said Mrs. Nestor, now laughing outright; 'if you knew her,
+or when you know her, as I hope you will soon, I'm afraid you will think
+her much more of a tomboy than a lady. Sharley is only eleven, though
+she is tall. Her name is Charlotte, like one of yours, but we call her
+Sharley; we spell it with an "S" to prevent people calling her
+"Charley," for she is boyish enough already, I am afraid. Then I have
+three girls younger&mdash;nine, six, and three, and two boys of&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>I was <i>so</i> interested&mdash;my eyes were very wide open, and I shouldn't
+wonder if my mouth was too&mdash;that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> for once in my life I was almost sorry
+to see grandmamma, who at that moment opened the door and came in.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope Helena has been a good hostess?' she said, after she had shaken
+hands with Mrs. Nestor, whom she had met before once or twice. 'We have
+been having a cake baking this morning, and I was just giving some
+directions about a special kind of gingerbread we want to try.'</p>
+
+<p>'I should apologise for coming in the morning,' said Mrs. Nestor, but
+grandmamma assured her it was quite right to have chosen the morning.
+'Helena and I go out in the afternoon whenever the weather is fine
+enough, and I should have been sorry to miss you. Now, my little girl,
+you may run off to Kezia. Say good-bye to Mrs. Nestor.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt very disappointed, but I was accustomed to obey at once. But Mrs.
+Nestor read the disappointment in my eyes: that was one of the nice
+things about her. She was so 'understanding.'</p>
+
+<p>She turned to grandmamma.</p>
+
+<p>'One of my daughters is in the pony-carriage,' she said. 'Would you
+allow Helena to go out to her? She would be pleased to see your garden,
+I am sure.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Certainly,' said grandmamma. 'Put on your hat and jacket, Helena, and
+ask Miss'&mdash;she had caught sight of the girl from the window and saw that
+she was pretty big&mdash;'Miss Nestor to walk about with you a little.'</p>
+
+<p>I flew off&mdash;too excited to feel at all timid about making friends by
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>'Call her Sharley,' said Mrs. Nestor, as I left the room. 'She would not
+know herself by any other name.'</p>
+
+<p>In a minute or two I was running down the garden-path. When I found
+myself fairly out at the gate, and within a few steps of the girl, I
+think a feeling of shyness <i>did</i> come over me, though I did not myself
+understand what it was. I hung back a little and began to wonder what I
+should say. I had so seldom spoken to a child belonging to my own rank
+in life. And I had not often spoken to any of the poorer children about,
+as there happened to be none in the cottages near us, and grandmamma was
+perhaps a little <i>too</i> anxious about me, too afraid of my catching any
+childish illness. She says herself that she thinks she was. But of
+course I am now so strong and big that it makes it rather different.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had not much time left in which to grow shy, however. As soon as the
+girl saw that I was plainly coming towards her she sprang out of the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>'Has mother sent you to fetch me?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her. Now that she was out of the carriage and standing, I
+could see that she was not as tall as grandmamma, or as her own mother,
+and that her frock was a good way off the ground. And her hair was
+hanging down her back. Still she seemed to me almost a grown-up lady.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid her first impression of <i>me</i> must have been that I was
+extremely stupid. For I went on staring at her for a moment or two
+before I answered. She was indeed opening her lips to repeat the
+question when I at last found my voice.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know,' I said. And if she did not think me stupid before I
+spoke, she certainly must have done so when I did.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know,' I repeated, considering over what her question exactly
+meant. 'No, I don't think it was fetching you. I was to ask you&mdash;would
+you like to walk round our garden? And p'raps&mdash;your mamma was going to
+tell me all your names, but grandmamma told me to run away. I'd like to
+know your sisters that are as little as me's names.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I remember exactly what I said, for Sharley has often told me since how
+difficult it was for her not to burst out laughing at the funny way I
+spoke. But tomboy though she was in some respects, she had a very tender
+heart, and like her mother she was quick at understanding. So she
+answered quite soberly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you. I should like very much to walk round your garden&mdash;though
+running would be even nicer. I'm not very fond of walking if I can run,
+and you have got such jolly steep paths and banks.'</p>
+
+<p>I eyed the steep paths doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>'You hurt yourself a good deal if you run too fast down the paths,' I
+said. 'The stones are so sharp.'</p>
+
+<p>Sharley laughed.</p>
+
+<p>'You speak from experience,' she said. 'That grass bank would be lovely
+for tobogganing.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know what that is,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'We'll show you if you come to see us at home,' she said. 'But I suppose
+I'd better not try anything like that to-day. You want to know my
+sisters' names? They are Anna and Valetta and Baby&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind about Baby,' I interrupted, rather abruptly, I fear. 'How
+big is Anna, and&mdash;the other one?'</p>
+
+<p>Sharley stood still and looked me well over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Do you really mean "big"?' she said, 'or "old"? Anna is nine and Val is
+six; but as for bigness&mdash;Anna is nearly as tall as I am, and Val is a
+good bit bigger than you.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt and looked nearly ready to cry.</p>
+
+<p>'And I'm past seven,' I said, 'I wish I wasn't so little. It's like
+being a baby, and I don't care for babies.'</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind,' replied Sharley consolingly, 'you needn't be at all
+babyish because you're little. One of our boys is very little, but he's
+not a bit of a baby. I'm sure Val will like to play with you, and so
+will Anna&mdash;and all of us, for that matter.'</p>
+
+<p>I began to think Sharley a very nice girl. I put my hand in hers
+confidingly.</p>
+
+<p>'I'd like to come,' I said, 'and I'd like to play that funny name down
+the grass-bank here, if you'll show me how.'</p>
+
+<p>'All right,' she said. 'We'll have to ask leave, I suppose. But you
+haven't told me your name yet. The children are sure to ask me.'</p>
+
+<p>I repeated it&mdash;or them&mdash;solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>'"Charlotte"&mdash;that's my name,' Sharley remarked.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm never called it,' I said. 'I'm always called Helena.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sharley looked rather surprised.</p>
+
+<p>'Fancy!' she said. '<i>We</i> all call each other by short names and
+nicknames and all kinds of absurd names. Anna is generally Nan, and the
+boys are Pert and Quick&mdash;at least those are the names that have lasted
+longest. I daresay it's partly because they are just a little like their
+real names&mdash;Percival and Quintin.'</p>
+
+<p>'What a great many of you there are!' I said, but Sharley took my remark
+in perfectly good part, even though I went on to add&mdash;'It's like the
+baker's children&mdash;I counted them once, but I couldn't get them right;
+sometimes they came to nine and sometimes to eleven.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you mean the baker's on the way to High Middlemoor?' said Sharley.
+'Oh yes, it must be them&mdash;papa calls them the baker's dozen always. No,
+we're not as many as that. We are only seven&mdash;us four girls, and Pert
+and Quick, and Jerry, our big brother, who's at school. Dear me, it must
+be dull to be only one!'</p>
+
+<p>Just then we heard the voices of grandmamma and Sharley's mother coming
+towards us. And a minute or two later the pony-carriage drove away
+again, Sharley nodding back friendly farewells.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN</h3>
+
+<p>I stood looking after it as long as it was in sight. I felt quite
+strange, almost a little dazed, as if I had more than I could manage to
+think over in my head. Grandmamma, who was standing behind me, put her
+hand on my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at her, and I saw that her face seemed pleased.</p>
+
+<p>'Is that a nice lady, grandmamma?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>I do not quite know why I asked about Sharley's mother in that way, for
+I felt sure she was nice. I think I wanted grandmamma to help me to
+arrange my ideas a little.</p>
+
+<p>'Very nice, dear,' she said. 'Did you not think she spoke very kindly?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I did, grandmamma,' I replied. I had a rather 'old-fashioned' way
+of speaking sometimes, I think.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'And her little girl&mdash;well, she is not a little girl, exactly, is
+she?&mdash;seems very bright and kind too,' grandmamma went on.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' I replied, but then I hesitated. Grandmamma wanted to find out
+what I was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't seem quite sure about it?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, grandmamma. She is a very kind girl, but she made me feel funny.
+She has such a lot of brothers and sisters, and she says it must be so
+dull to be only one. Grandmamma, is it dull to be only one?'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma did not smile at my odd way of asking her what I could have
+told myself, better than any one else. A little sad look came over her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope not, dear,' she answered. 'My little girl does not find her life
+dull?'</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>'I love you, grandmamma, and I love Kezia, but I don't know about "dull"
+and things like that. I think Sharley thinks I'm a very stupid little
+girl, grandmamma.'</p>
+
+<p>And all of a sudden, greatly to dear granny's surprise and still more to
+her distress, I burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>She led me back into the house, and was very kind to me. But she did not
+say very much. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> only told me that she was sure Sharley did not think
+anything but what was nice and friendly about me, and that I must not be
+a fanciful little woman. And then she sent me to Kezia, who had kept an
+odd corner of her pastry for me to make into stars and hearts and other
+shapes with her cutters, as I was very fond of doing. So that very soon
+I was quite bright and happy again.</p>
+
+<p>But in her heart granny was saying that it would be a very good thing
+for me to have some companions of my own age, to prevent my getting
+fanciful and unchildlike, and, worst of all, too much taken up with
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after that, grandmamma told me that the three Nestor girls
+were coming twice a week to read French with her. I think I have said
+already that grandmamma was very clever, very clever indeed, and that
+she knew several foreign languages. She had been a great deal in other
+countries when grandpapa was alive, and she could speak French
+beautifully. So I wasn't surprised, and only very pleased when she told
+me about Sharley and her sisters. For I was too little to understand
+what any one else would have known in a moment, that dear granny was
+going to do this to make a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> more money. My illness and all the
+things she had got for me&mdash;even the having more fires&mdash;had cost a good
+deal that last winter, and she had asked the vicar of our village to let
+her know if he heard of any family wanting French or German lessons for
+their children.</p>
+
+<p>This was the reason of Mrs. Nestor's call, and it was because they were
+going to settle about the French lessons that grandmamma had sent me out
+of the room. It was not till long afterwards that I understood all about
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Just now I was very pleased.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, how nice!' I said, 'and may I play with them after the lessons are
+done, do you think, grandmamma? And will they ask me to go to their
+house to tea sometimes? Sharley said they would&mdash;at least she nearly
+said it.'</p>
+
+<p>'I daresay you will go to their house some day. I think Mrs. Nestor is
+very kind, and I am sure she would ask you if she thought it would
+please you,' said grandmamma. But then she stopped a little. 'I want you
+to understand, Helena dear, that these children are coming here really
+to learn French. So you must not think about playing with them just at
+first, that must be as their mother likes.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma did not say what she felt in her own mind&mdash;that she would not
+wish to seem to try to make acquaintance with the Nestors, who were very
+rich and important people, through giving lessons to their children. For
+she was proud in a right way&mdash;no, I won't call it proud&mdash;I think
+dignified is a better word.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Nestor was too nice herself not to see at once the sort of
+person grandmamma was. She was almost <i>too</i> delicate in her feelings,
+for she was so afraid of seeming to be in the least condescending or
+patronising to us, that she kept back from showing us as much kindness
+as she would have liked to do. So it never came about that we grew very
+intimate with the family at Moor Court&mdash;that was the name of their
+home&mdash;I really saw more of the three girls at our own little cottage
+than in their own grand house.</p>
+
+<p>But as I go on with my story you will see that there was a reason for my
+telling about them, and about how we came to know them, rather
+particularly.</p>
+
+<p>The French lessons began the next week. Sharley and her sisters used to
+come together, sometimes walking with a maid, sometimes driving over in
+a little pony-cart&mdash;not the beautiful carriage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> with the two ponies;
+that was their mother's&mdash;but what is called a governess-cart, in which
+they drove a fat old fellow called Bunch, too fat and lazy to be up to
+much mischief. When they drove over they brought a young groom with
+them, but their governess very seldom came. I think Mrs. Nestor thought
+it would be pleasanter for granny to give the lessons without a grown-up
+person being there, and Sharley said their governess used that time to
+give the two boys Latin lessons. Mrs. Nestor would have been very glad
+if grandmamma would have agreed to teach Pert and Quick French too, but
+granny did not think she could spare time for it, though a year or two
+later when Percival had gone to school she did let Quick join what we
+called the second class.</p>
+
+<p>I should have explained that though I could not read or write French at
+all well, I could speak it rather nicely, as grandmamma had taken great
+pains to accustom me to do so since I was quite little.</p>
+
+<p>I think she had a feeling that I might have to be a governess or
+something of the kind when I was grown-up, and that made her very
+anxious about my lessons from the beginning of them. And though things
+have turned out quite differently from that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> I have always been <i>very</i>
+glad that I was well taught from the first. It is such a comfort to me
+now that I am really growing big to be able to show grandmamma that I am
+not far back for my age compared with other girls.</p>
+
+<p>Sharley was the first class all by herself, and Nan and Vallie were the
+second. I did not do any lessons with them, but after each class had had
+half an hour's teaching we had conversation for another half hour, and
+when the conversation time began I was always sent for. Grandmamma had
+asked Mrs. Nestor if she would like that, and Mrs. Nestor was very
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>We had great fun at the 'conversation.' You can scarcely believe what
+comical things the little girls said when they first began to try to
+talk. Grandmamma sometimes laughed till the tears came into her eyes&mdash;I
+do love to see her laugh&mdash;and I laughed too, partly, I think, because
+she did, for the funny things they said did not seem quite so funny to
+me, of course, as to a big person.</p>
+
+<p>But altogether the French lessons were very nice and brought some
+variety into our lives. I think granny and I looked forward to them as
+much as the Nestor children did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma's birthday happened to come about a fortnight after they
+began. I told Sharley about it one day when she was out in the garden
+with me, while her sisters were at their lesson. We used to do that way
+sometimes, only we had to promise to speak French all the time, so that
+I really had a little to do with teaching them as well as grandmamma,
+and to tease me, on these occasions Sharley would call me
+'mademoiselle,' and make Nan and Vallie do the same. They used in turn,
+you see, to be with me while Sharley was with granny.</p>
+
+<p>It was rather difficult to make her understand about grandmamma's
+birthday, I remember, for she could scarcely speak French at all then,
+and at last she burst out into English, for she got very interested
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll tell Mrs. Wingfield we have been talking English,' she said, 'and
+I'll tell her it was all my fault. But I must understand what you are
+saying.'</p>
+
+<p>'It's about grandmamma's birthday,' I said. 'I do so want to make a plan
+for it.'</p>
+
+<p>Sharley's eyes sparkled. She loved making plans, and so did Vallie, who
+was very quick and bright about everything, while Nan was rather a
+sleepy little girl, though exceedingly good-natured. I don't think I
+<i>ever</i> knew her speak crossly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'I heard something about "f&ecirc;te,"' said Sharley, 'about f&ecirc;te and
+grandmamma. Why do you call her birthday her "f&ecirc;te"?'</p>
+
+<p>'I didn't,' I replied. '"F&ecirc;te" doesn't generally mean birthday&mdash;it means
+something else, something about a saint's day. I said I wanted to
+"f&ecirc;ter" dear granny on her birthday, and I wondered what I could do.
+Last year I worked a little case in that stiff stuff with holes in, to
+keep stamps in, and Kezia made tea-cakes. But I can't think of anything
+I can work for her this year, and tea-cakes are only tea-cakes,' and I
+sighed.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't look so unhappy,' said Sharley, '<i>we'll</i> plan. We're rather short
+of plans just now, and we always like to have some on hand for first
+thing in the morning&mdash;Val and I do at least. Nan never wakes up
+properly. Leave it to us, Helena, and the next time we come I'll tell
+you what we've thought of.'</p>
+
+<p>I had a good deal of faith in Sharley's cleverness in some things,
+already, though I can't say that it shone out in speaking French. So I
+promised to wait to see what she and Vallie thought of.</p>
+
+<p>When we went in we told grandmamma that we had been speaking English. I
+made it up into very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> good French, and Sharley said it, which pleased
+granny.</p>
+
+<p>'And what was it you were so eager about that you couldn't wait to say
+it, or hear it in French?' she asked Sharley.</p>
+
+<p>We had not expected this, and Sharley got rather red.</p>
+
+<p>'It's a secret,' she blurted out.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma looked just a little grave.</p>
+
+<p>'I am not very fond of secrets,' she said. 'And Helena has never had
+any.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, I have, grandmamma,' I said. I did not mean to contradict
+rudely, and I don't think it sounded like that, though it looks rather
+rude written down. 'I had one this time last year&mdash;don't you
+remember?&mdash;about your little stamp case.'</p>
+
+<p>Granny's face brightened up. It did not take very quick wits to put two
+and two together, and to guess from what I said that the secret had to
+do with her birthday. And Sharley was too anxious for grandmamma not to
+be vexed, to think about her having partly guessed the secret.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, well!' said granny, 'I think I can trust you both.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, indeed, you may,' said Sharley. 'There's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> nothing about mischief
+in it, and the only secrets mother's ever been vexed with me about had
+to do with mischief.'</p>
+
+<p>'Sharley dressed up a pillow to tumble on Pert's head from the top of
+his door, once,' said Nan in her slow solemn voice, 'and he screamed and
+screamed.'</p>
+
+<p>'It was because he was such a boasty boy, about never being frightened,'
+said Sharley, getting rather red. 'But I never did it again. And this
+secret is quite, quite a different kind.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt very eager for the next French day, as we called them, to come,
+to hear what Sharley had thought of. I told Kezia about it, and then I
+almost wished I had not, for she said she did not know that grandmamma
+would be pleased at my talking about her birthday and 'such like' to
+strangers.</p>
+
+<p>I think Kezia forgot sometimes how very little a girl I still was. I did
+not understand what she meant, and all I could say was that the three
+girls were not strangers to me. Afterwards I saw what Kezia was thinking
+of, she was afraid of the Nestors sending some present to grandmamma,
+and that, she would not have liked.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Nestor was too good and sensible for anything of that kind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When Sharley and Nan and Vallie came the next time, I ran to meet them,
+full of anxiety to know if they had made any 'plans.' They all looked
+very important, but rather to my disappointment the first thing Sharley
+said to me was&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Don't ask us yet, Helena. We've promised mother not to tell. She's
+going to come to fetch us to-day, and she's made a lovely plan, but
+first she has to speak about it to your grandmamma.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then it won't be a surprise,' I began, but Vallie answered before I had
+time to say any more.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, it will. There's to be a surprise mixed up with it, and we're
+to settle that part of it all ourselves&mdash;you and us.'</p>
+
+<p>I found it very difficult to keep to speaking French that day, I can
+tell you. And it seemed as if the hour and a half of lessons spread out
+to twice as much before Mrs. Nestor at last came.</p>
+
+<p>We all ran out into the garden while she went in to talk to grandmamma.
+They were very kind and did not keep us long waiting, and soon we heard
+granny calling us from the window. Her face was quite pleased and
+smiling. I saw in a moment that she was not going to say I should not
+have spoken of her birthday to the little girls.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Mrs. Nestor is thinking of a great treat for you&mdash;and for me, Helena,'
+she said. 'And she and I want you to know about it at once, so that you
+may all talk about it together and enjoy it beforehand as well. Some
+little bird, it seems, has flown over to Moor Court and told that next
+Tuesday week will be your old granny's birthday, and Mrs. Nestor has
+invited us to spend the afternoon of it there. You will like that, will
+you not?'</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at grandmamma, feeling quite strange. You will hardly
+believe that I had never in my life paid even a visit of this simple
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' I whispered, feeling myself getting pink all over, as I knew that
+Mrs. Nestor was looking at me, 'yes, thank you.'</p>
+
+<p>Then dear little Vallie came close up to me, and said in a low voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Now we can settle about the surprise. Come quick, Helena&mdash;the surprise
+will be the fun.'</p>
+
+<p>And when I found myself alone with the others again, all three of them,
+even Nan, chattering at once, I soon found my own tongue again, and the
+strange, unreal sort of feeling went off. They were very simple unspoilt
+children, though their parents were rich and what I used to call
+'grand.' It is quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> a mistake to think that the children who live in
+very large houses and have ponies and lots of servants and everything
+they can want are sure to be spoilt. Very often it is quite the
+opposite. For, if their parents are good and wise, they are <i>extra</i>
+careful not to spoil them, knowing that the sort of trials that cannot
+be kept away from poorer children, and which are a training in
+themselves in some ways, are not likely to come to <i>their</i> children. I
+even think now, looking back, that there was really more risk of being
+spoilt, for me myself, than for Sharley and her brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>Being allowed to be selfish is the real beginning and end of being
+spoilt, I am quite sure.</p>
+
+<p>The 'surprise' they had thought of was a very simple one, and one that I
+knew grandmamma would like. It was that we should have tea out-of-doors,
+in an arbour where there was a table and seats all round. And we were to
+decorate it with flowers, and a wicker arm-chair was to be brought out
+for granny, and wreathed with greenery and flowers, to show that she was
+queen of the feast.</p>
+
+<p>'So it will be a "f&ecirc;te," after all, Helena,' said Sharley.</p>
+
+<p>They were nearly as eager and pleased about it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> as I was myself, for
+they had already learnt to love my grandmamma very dearly.</p>
+
+<p>'There's only one thing,' we kept saying to each other every time we met
+before the great day, 'it <i>mustn't</i> rain. Oh, do let us <i>hope</i> it will
+be fine,&mdash;beautifully fine.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>A HAPPY DAY</h3>
+
+<p>And it <i>was</i> a fine day! Things after all do not always go wrong in this
+world, though some people are fond of talking as if they did.</p>
+
+<p>That day, that happy birthday, stands out in my mind so clearly that I
+think I must write a good deal about it, even though to most children
+there would not seem anything very remarkable to tell. But to me it was
+like a peep into fairyland. To begin with, it was the very first time in
+my life that I had ever paid a visit of any kind except once or twice
+when I had had tea in rather a dull fashion at the vicarage, where there
+were no children and no one who understood much about them. Miss Linden,
+the vicar's sister, a very old-maid sort of lady, though she meant to be
+kind, had my tea put out in a corner of the room by myself, while she
+and grandmamma had theirs in a regular drawing-room way. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> had
+muffins, I remember, and Miss Linden thought muffins not good for little
+girls, and my bread-and-butter was cut thicker than I ever had it at the
+cottage, and the slice of currant-bread was not nearly as good as
+Kezia's home-made cake&mdash;even the plainest kind.</p>
+
+<p>No, my remembrances of going out to tea at the vicarage were not very
+enlivening.</p>
+
+<p>How different the visit to Moor Court was!</p>
+
+<p>It began&mdash;the pleasure of it at least to me&mdash;the first thing when I
+awoke that morning, and saw without getting out of bed&mdash;for my room was
+so little that I could not help seeing straight out of the window, and I
+never had the blinds drawn down&mdash;that it was a perfectly lovely morning.
+It was the sort of morning that gives almost certain promise of a
+beautiful day.</p>
+
+<p>In our country, because of the hills, you see, it isn't always easy to
+tell beforehand what the weather is going to be, unless you really study
+it. But even while I was quite a child I had learnt to know the signs of
+it very well. I knew about the lights and shadows coming over the hills,
+the gray look at a certain side, the way the sun set, and lots of things
+of that kind which told me a good deal that a stranger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> would never have
+thought of. I knew there were some kinds of bright mornings which were
+really less hopeful than the dull and gloomy ones, but there was nothing
+of that sort to-day, so I curled myself round in bed again with a
+delightful feeling that there was nothing to be feared from the weather.</p>
+
+<p>I did not dare to get up till I heard Kezia's knock at the door&mdash;for
+that was one of grandmamma's rules, and though she had not many rules,
+those there <i>were</i> had to be obeyed, I can assure you.</p>
+
+<p>I must have fallen asleep again, for the next thing I remember was
+hearing grandmamma's voice, and there she was, standing beside my bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, granny!' I called out, 'what a shame for you to be the one to wake
+me on <i>your</i> birthday.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear,' said grandmamma, 'it is quite right. Kezia hasn't been yet,
+it is just about her time.'</p>
+
+<p>I sprang up and ran to the table, where I had put my little present for
+grandmamma the night before, for of course I had got a present for her
+all of my own, besides having planned the treat with the Nestors.</p>
+
+<p>I remember what my present was that year. It was a little box for
+holding buttons, which I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> bought at the village shop, and it had a
+picture of the old, old Abbey Church at Middlemoor on its lid.
+Grandmamma has that button-box still, I saw it in her work-basket only
+yesterday. I was very proud of it, for it was the first year I had saved
+pennies enough to be able to <i>buy</i> something instead of working a
+present for grandmamma.</p>
+
+<p>She did seem so pleased with it. I remember now the look in her eyes as
+she stooped to kiss me. Then she turned and lifted something which I had
+not noticed from a chair standing near.</p>
+
+<p>'This is my present for my little girl,' she said, and though I was
+inclined to say that it was not fair for her to give me presents on her
+birthday, I was so delighted with what she held out for me to see that I
+really could scarcely speak.</p>
+
+<p>What do you think it was?</p>
+
+<p>A new frock&mdash;the prettiest by far I had ever had. The stuff was white,
+embroidered by grandmamma herself in sky-blue, in such a pretty pattern.
+She had sat up at night to do it after I was in bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, grandmamma,' I said, 'how beautiful it is! Oh, may I&mdash;' but then I
+stopped short&mdash;'may I wear it to-day?' was what I was going to say. But,
+'oh no,' I went on, 'it might get dirtied.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'You are to wear it to-day, dear,' said grandmamma, 'if that is what you
+were going to say, so you needn't spoil your pleasure by being afraid of
+its getting dirtied; it will wash perfectly well, for I steeped the silk
+I worked it in, in salt and water before using it, to make the colour
+quite fast. I will leave it here on the back of the chair, and when the
+time comes for you to get ready I will dress you myself, to be sure that
+it is all quite right.'</p>
+
+<p>I kept peeping at my pretty frock all the time I was dressing; the sight
+of it seemed the one thing wanting to complete my happiness. For though
+Sharley and Nan and Vallie were never too grandly dressed, their things
+were always fresh and pretty, and I <i>had</i> been thinking to myself that
+none of my summer frocks were quite as nice or new-looking as theirs.</p>
+
+<p>And to-day, though only May, was really summer.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma wouldn't let me do very much that morning, as she did not
+want me to be tired for the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>'Is it a very long walk to Moor Court?' I asked her.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma smiled, a little funnily, I thought afterwards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' she said, 'it is between two and three miles.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then we must set off early,' I said, 'so as not to have to go too fast
+and be tired when we get there. I don't mind for coming back about being
+tired; there'll be nothing to do then but go to bed, it'll all be over!'
+and I gave a little sigh, 'but I don't want to think about its being
+over yet.'</p>
+
+<p>'We must start at half-past two,' said grandmamma. 'That will be time
+enough.'</p>
+
+<p>Long before half-past two, as you can fancy, I was quite ready. My frock
+fitted perfectly, and even Kezia, who was rather afraid of praising my
+appearance for fear of making me conceited, said with a smile that I did
+look very nice.</p>
+
+<p>I quite thought so myself, but I really think all my pride was for
+grandmamma's frock.</p>
+
+<p>I settled myself in the window-seat looking towards the road, as I have
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>'Stay there quietly,' grandmamma said to me, 'till I call you.'</p>
+
+<p>And again I noticed a sort of little twinkle in her eyes, of which
+before long I understood the reason. I must have been sitting there a
+quarter of an hour at least when I thought I heard wheels coming. It
+wasn't the usual time for the butcher or baker, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> any of the
+cart-people, as I called them, and wheels of any other kind seldom came
+our way. So I looked out with great curiosity to see what it could be.</p>
+
+<p>To my astonishment, there came trotting along the short bit of level
+road leading to our own steep path the two ponies and the pretty
+pony-carriage that had so delighted me the first time I saw them.</p>
+
+<p>Sharley was driving, the little groom behind her. But this time my first
+feeling was certainly not one of pleasure. On the contrary I started in
+dismay.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear,' I thought, 'there's something the matter, and Sharley has
+come herself to say we can't go.'</p>
+
+<p>I rushed upstairs, the tears already very near my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'Granny, granny,' I exclaimed, 'the pony-carriage has come and Sharley's
+there! I'm sure she's come to tell us we can't go.'</p>
+
+<p>My voice broke down before I could say anything more. Grandmamma was
+coming out of her room quite ready, and even in the middle of my fright
+I could not help thinking how nice she looked in her pretty dark gray
+dress and black lace cloak, which, though she had had it a great, great
+many years, always seemed to me rich and grand enough for the Queen
+herself to wear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'My dear little girl,' she said, 'you really must not get into the way
+of fancying misfortunes before they come. It is a very bad habit. Why
+shouldn't Sharley have come to fetch us? Don't you think it would be
+nicer to drive to Moor Court than to walk all that way along the dusty
+road?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, granny,' I cried, and my tears, if they were there, vanished away
+like magic. 'Oh, granny, that would be too lovely. But are you quite
+sure?'</p>
+
+<p>'Quite,' said grandmamma, 'I promised to keep it a secret to please
+Sharley, as she is so fond of surprises. Run down now to meet her and
+tell her we are quite ready.'</p>
+
+<p>How perfectly delightful that drive was! I sat with my back to the
+ponies, on the low seat opposite grandmamma and Sharley.</p>
+
+<p>'Vallie wanted to come too,' said Sharley, 'but that seat isn't very
+comfortable for two.'</p>
+
+<p>It was very comfortable for one, at least I found it so. I had hardly
+ever been in a carriage before, and Sharley drove so nice and fast; she
+was very proud of being allowed to drive the two ponies. But they were
+so good, they seemed, like every one and everything else, determined to
+make that day a perfectly happy one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When we got to the lodge of Moor Court Sharley began to drive more
+slowly, and looked about as if expecting some one.</p>
+
+<p>'The others said they would come to meet us,' she explained, 'and
+sometimes Pert is rather naughty about startling the ponies, even though
+he can't bear being startled himself. Oh, there they are!'</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke the four figures appeared at a turn in the drive. Nan and
+Vallie in the pretty pink frocks, which no longer made me feel
+discontented with my own, as nothing could be prettier, I was quite
+firmly convinced, than grandmamma's beautiful work, which Sharley had
+already admired in her own pleasant and hearty way.</p>
+
+<p>We two got out of the pony-carriage, leaving grandmamma to be driven up
+to the house by the groom, the little girls saying that their mother was
+waiting for her on the lawn in front.</p>
+
+<p>I had never seen the boys before. Percival seemed to me quite big,
+though he was one year younger than Sharley and smaller for his age.
+Quintin was more like Nan, slow and solemn and rather fat, so his
+nickname of Quick certainly didn't suit him very well. But they were
+both very nice and kind to me. I am quite sure Sharley had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> talked to
+them well about it before I came, though it was easy to see that when
+Pert was not on his best behaviour he was very fond of playing tricks.</p>
+
+<p>I felt very happy, and not at all strange or frightened as I walked
+along between Sharley and Val, each holding one of my hands and
+chattering away about all we were going to do, though I had a queer,
+rather nice feeling as if I must be in a dream, it all seemed so pretty
+and wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed many people, far better able to judge of such things than I,
+think that Moor Court is one of the loveliest places in England. I did
+not see much of the inside of the house that day, though I learnt to
+know it well afterwards. It was very old and very large, and everything
+about it seemed to me quite perfect. But on this day we amused ourselves
+almost altogether out of doors.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 322px;"><a name="I079" id="I079"></a>
+<img src="images/i079.jpg" width="322" height="500" alt="Grandmamma&#39;s chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily.&mdash;p. 67." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Grandmamma&#39;s chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily.&mdash;p. 67.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The children had already done a good deal to the arbour where we were to
+have tea; but grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily in gathering branches of ivy and
+other pretty green things to twine about it, with here and there a bunch
+of flowers, which Mrs. Nestor had told the gardener we were to have.</p>
+
+<p>Vallie was very anxious to make a wreath for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> grandmamma, but though I
+thought it a very nice idea, I was afraid it would look rather funny,
+and when Sharley reminded us that wreaths couldn't be worn very well
+above a bonnet, we quite gave it up.</p>
+
+<p>But we did make the table look very pretty, and at last everything was
+ready, except the tea itself and the hot cakes, which of course the
+servants would bring at the very end.</p>
+
+<p>By the time we had finished it was nearly four o'clock, and we were not
+to have tea till half-past, so there was time for a nice game of
+hide-and-seek among the trees. I don't think I ever ran so fast or
+laughed so much in my life. They were all such good-natured children,
+even if they did have little quarrels they were soon over, and then I
+think they were all especially kind to me. I suppose they were sorry for
+me in some ways that did not come into my own mind at all.</p>
+
+<p>Then we all went to the house to be made tidy for tea, and in spite of
+what grandmamma had said about not minding if my frock was dirtied I was
+very pleased to find that it was perfectly clean.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma and Mrs. Nestor were waiting for us in the drawing-room; and
+we all went back to the arbour together, Sharley walking first with
+grandmamma,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> which was quite right, as the plan about tea had been all
+her own.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma <i>was</i> pleased. I think she liked to see how fond these
+children had already got to be of her, though perhaps it would have been
+as well if Quick had not informed us in the middle of tea that he liked
+her a great, great deal better than his real grandmamma, whose nose was
+very big and her hair quite black.</p>
+
+<p>'But she's very kind to us too,' said Sharley, 'only I don't think she
+cares much for little boys.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nor for tomboys either,' said Pert, who did love teasing Sharley
+whenever he had a chance.</p>
+
+<p>'Jerry's her favourite,' said Nan.</p>
+
+<p>'And I think he deserves to be,' said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish he was here to-day, I know that,' said Sharley. 'It's such a
+long time to the holidays, and it won't be so nice this year when they
+do come, as most likely a boy's coming with Jerry.'</p>
+
+<p>'Two boys,' corrected Pert, 'their name's Vandeleur, and they're his
+greatest friends.'</p>
+
+<p>'Vandeleur?' said grandmamma. 'I wonder if&mdash;&mdash;' and then she stopped. 'I
+have relations of that name,' she said, 'but I don't suppose they belong
+to the same family.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'It is not a common name,' said Mrs. Nestor. 'But these boys are, I
+believe, orphans. Both their father and mother are dead, are they not,
+Sharley? Sharley knows the most about them,' she went on, 'for Gerard
+and she write long letters to each other always, and she hears all about
+his school friends and everything he is interested in.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Sharley, 'they are orphans. They have an old aunt or some
+relation who takes care of them. But I think they are rather lonely.
+They often spend all their holidays at school&mdash;that was why Jerry
+thought it would be nice to invite them here. I daresay it will be very
+nice for <i>them</i>, but <i>I</i> think it will quite spoil the holidays for
+<i>us</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Sharley,' said her mother, 'you must not be selfish.'</p>
+
+<p>'What are the boys' Christian names?' asked grandmamma.</p>
+
+<p>'Harry and Lindsay,' Sharley replied.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' she said, as if thinking aloud, 'I never heard those names in the
+branch of the Vandeleurs I am connected with.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>'WAVING VIEW'</h3>
+
+<p>I was only eight years old at the time we made the acquaintance of the
+family at Moor Court. It may seem strange and unlikely that I should
+remember so clearly all that happened when we first got to know them,
+but even though I was so young at the time I <i>do</i> recollect all about it
+very well.</p>
+
+<p>For it was so new to me that it made a great impression.</p>
+
+<p>Till then I had never had any real companions; as I have said already, I
+had scarcely ever had a meal out of our own house. It was like the
+opening of a new world to me.</p>
+
+<p>But I have asked grandmamma about a few things which she remembers more
+exactly than I do. Especially about the Vandeleur boys, I mean about
+what was said of them. But for things that happened afterwards I daresay
+I should never have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> thought of this again, though grandmamma did not
+forget about it. She told me over quite lately everything that had
+passed at that birthday tea.</p>
+
+<p>The months, and indeed the years that followed that first happy day at
+Moor Court seem to me now, on looking back upon them, a good deal mixed
+up together&mdash;till, that is to say, a change, a melancholy one for me,
+came over my happy friendship with the Nestor children.</p>
+
+<p>This change, however, did not come for fully three years, and these
+three years were very bright and sunny ones. Sharley and her sisters
+continued all that time to be my grandmamma's pupils&mdash;winter and summer,
+all the year round, except for some weeks of holiday at Christmas, and a
+rather longer time in the autumn, when the Nestors generally went to the
+sea-side for a change; unless the weather was terribly bad or stormy,
+twice a week they either walked over with a maid, or the governess-cart
+drawn by the fat pony made its appearance at the end of our path.
+Sometimes the little groom went on into the village if there were any
+messages, sometimes if it was cold he drove as far as the farm at the
+foot of the hill, where it was arranged that he could 'put up' for an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+hour or two, sometimes in warm summer days the pony-cart just waited
+where it was.</p>
+
+<p>Often, once a fortnight or so at least, in the fine season, I made one
+of the party on the little girls' return home. How we all managed to
+squeeze into the cart, or how old Bunch managed to take us all home
+without coming to grief on the way, I am sure I can't say.</p>
+
+<p>I only know we <i>did</i> manage it, and so did he. For he is still alive and
+well, and no doubt 'ready to tell the story,' if he could speak.</p>
+
+<p>We never seemed to be ill in those days. The Nestor children were no
+doubt very strong, and I grew much stronger. Then Middlemoor is such a
+splendidly healthy place.</p>
+
+<p>I have some misty recollections of Nan and Vallie having the measles,
+and a doubt arising as to whether I had not got it too. But if it was
+measles it did not seem worse than a cold, and we were soon all out and
+about again, as merry as ever.</p>
+
+<p>And grandmamma seemed to grow younger during those years. Her mind was
+more at rest for the time, for the steady payment she received for the
+girls' French lessons made all the difference in our little income,
+between being comfortable, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> small extra in case of need, and
+being only <i>just</i> able to make both ends meet with a great deal of
+tugging. And grandmamma was happy about taking the money, for it was
+well earned; Sharley and the others made such good progress in French
+and after a little while in German also, even though Nan was by nature
+rather slow and Vallie dreadfully flighty, and not at all good at giving
+her attention.</p>
+
+<p>But she <i>was</i> so sweet! I never saw any one so sweet as Vallie, when she
+had been found fault with and was sorry; the tears used to come up into
+her big brown eyes very slowly and stay there, making them look like
+velvety pansies with dewdrops in them.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow Sharley always seemed the <i>most</i> my friend, though she was a
+good deal older. Perhaps it was through having known her the first, and
+partly, I daresay, because in <i>some</i> ways I was old for my age.</p>
+
+<p>The big brother Gerard came home for his holidays three times a year. He
+was a very nice boy, I am sure, but I did not get to know him well, and
+I had rather a grudge at him. For when he was at Moor Court I seemed to
+see so much less of Sharley. It wasn't her fault. She was not a
+changeable girl at all, but Jerry had always been accustomed to having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+her a great deal with him in his holidays, as she took pains to explain
+to me. So of course if she had given him up for me she <i>would</i> have been
+changeable.</p>
+
+<p>She did her best, I will say that for her. She told Gerard all about me,
+and he was very nice to me. But it was in rather a big boy way, which I
+did not understand. I thought he was treating me like a baby when <i>he</i>
+only meant to be kind and brotherly. I remember one day being so
+offended at his lifting me over a stile, that it was all I could do not
+to burst into tears!</p>
+
+<p>So it came to be the way among us, without anything being actually said
+about it, that during Jerry's holidays I was mostly with the four
+others&mdash;Nan and Vallie and the two younger boys.</p>
+
+<p>And I daresay it was a good thing for me. For none of them were at all
+old for their age; they were just hearty, healthy, regular <i>children</i>,
+living in the present and very happy in it. And if I had been altogether
+with the older ones I might have grown more and more 'old-fashioned.'
+For Gerard was a very serious and thoughtful boy, and Sharley, though in
+outside ways she seemed rather wild and hoydenish, was really very
+clever and very wise, to be only the age she was. I never quite took in
+that side of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> character till I saw her with Jerry&mdash;she seemed quite
+transformed.</p>
+
+<p>One thing came to pass, however, which was a great pleasure to the two
+people it chiefly concerned and to Sharley. As for me, I don't think I
+gave much attention to it, and I am not sure that if it had at all
+interfered with my own life I should not have been rather jealous!</p>
+
+<p>This was a close friendship between Gerard Nestor and grandmamma.</p>
+
+<p>And it is necessary to speak about it because it was the beginning of
+things which brought about great changes.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma loved boys and she was one of those women that are well
+fitted to manage them. She used to say that till she got <i>me</i>, she had
+never had anything to do with <i>girls</i>. For her own children were both
+boys&mdash;papa was the elder, and the other was a dear boy who died when he
+was only sixteen, and whom of course I had never seen, though grandmamma
+liked me to speak of him as 'Uncle Guy.' Then, too, she had had some
+charge of her nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.</p>
+
+<p>Her friendship with Jerry came about by his reading French and German
+with her in the holidays.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> He had never been out of England and he was
+anxious to improve his 'foreign languages,' as he was backward in them,
+besides having a very bad accent indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Granny has often said she never had so attentive a pupil, and it was in
+talking with him&mdash;for 'conversation' was a very important part of her
+teaching&mdash;that she got to know so much of Gerard, and he so much of her.</p>
+
+<p>She used to tell him stories of her own boys, Paul&mdash;Paul was papa&mdash;and
+Guy, in French, and he had to answer questions about the stories to show
+that he had understood her. And in these stories the name of Cosmo
+Vandeleur came to be mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>The first time or so he heard it I don't think Jerry noticed it. But one
+day it struck him just as it had struck grandmamma that first day&mdash;the
+birthday-tea day&mdash;at Moor Court.</p>
+
+<p>'Vandeleur,' said Jerry&mdash;it was one day when he had come over for his
+lesson, and as it was raining and I could not go out, I was sitting in
+the window making a cloak or something for my doll. 'Vandeleur,' he
+repeated. 'I wonder, Mrs. Wingfield, if your nephew is any relation to
+some boys at my school. They are great chums of mine&mdash;they were to have
+come home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> with me for the summer holidays'&mdash;it was the Christmas
+holidays now,&mdash;'but their relations had settled something else for them
+and wouldn't let them come. I think their relations must be rather
+horrid.'</p>
+
+<p>'I remember Sharley&mdash;I think it was Sharley&mdash;speaking of them,' said
+grandmamma. 'They are orphans, are they not?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Gerard. 'They've got guardians&mdash;one of them is quite an old
+woman. Her name is Lady Bridget Woodstone. They don't care very much for
+her. I think she must be very crabbed.'</p>
+
+<p>'I do not think they can be related to my nephew,' said grandmamma. 'I
+never heard of any orphan boys in his family, and I never heard of Lady
+Bridget Woodstone. But Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur is only my nephew, because
+his mother was my husband's sister&mdash;so of course he <i>may</i> have relations
+I know nothing of. He always seemed to me very near when he was a boy,
+because he was so often with us.'</p>
+
+<p>She sighed a little as she finished speaking. Thinking of Mr. Vandeleur
+made her sad. It did seem so strange that he had never written all these
+years.</p>
+
+<p>And Jerry was very quick as well as thoughtful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> He saw that for some
+reason the mention of the name made her sad, so he said no more about
+the Vandeleur boys. Long afterwards he told us that when he went back to
+school he did ask Harry and Lindsay Vandeleur if they had any relation
+called Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur, but at that time they told him they did not
+know. They were quite under the care of old Lady Bridget, and she was
+not a bit like granny. She was the sort of old lady who treats children
+as if they had no sense at all; she never told the boys anything about
+themselves or their family, and when they spent the holidays with her,
+she always had a tutor for them&mdash;the strictest she could find, so that
+they almost liked better to stay on at school.</p>
+
+<p>The three years I have been writing about must have passed quickly to
+grandmamma. They were so peaceful, and after we got to know the Nestors,
+much less lonely. And grandmamma says that it is quite wonderful how
+fast time goes once one begins to grow old. She does not seem to mind
+it. She is so very good&mdash;I cannot help saying this, for my own story
+would not be true if I did not keep saying <i>how</i> good she is.
+But I must take care not to let her see the places where I say it.
+She loves me as dearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> as she can, I know&mdash;and others beside me.
+But still I try not to be selfish and to remember that when the
+dreadful&mdash;dreadful-for-<i>me</i>&mdash;day comes that she must leave me, it will
+only for <i>her</i> be the going where she must often, often have longed to
+be&mdash;the country 'across the river,' where her very dearest have been
+watching for her for so long.</p>
+
+<p>To me those three years seem like one bright summer. Of course we had
+winters in them too, but there is a feeling of sunshine all over them.
+And, actually speaking, those winters were very mild ones&mdash;nothing like
+the occasional severe ones, of another of which I shall soon have to
+tell.</p>
+
+<p>I was so well too&mdash;growing so strong&mdash;stronger by far than grandmamma
+had ever hoped to see me. And as I grew strong I seemed to take in the
+delightfulness of it, though as a very little girl I had not often
+<i>complained</i> of feeling weak and tired, for I did not understand the
+difference.</p>
+
+<p>Now I must tell about the change that came to the Nestors&mdash;a sad change
+for me, for though at first it seemed worse for them, in the end I
+really think it brought more trouble to granny and me than to our dear
+friends themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It was one day in the autumn, early in October<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> I think, that the first
+beginning of the cloud came. Gerard had not long been back at school and
+we were just settling down into our regular ways again.</p>
+
+<p>'The girls are late this morning,' said grandmamma. 'You see nothing of
+them from your watch-tower, do you, Helena?'</p>
+
+<p>Granny always called the window-seat in our tiny drawing-room my
+'watch-tower.' I had very long sight and I had found out that there was
+a bit of the road from Moor Court where I could see the pony-cart
+passing, like a little dark speck, before it got hidden again among the
+trees. After that open bit I could not see it again at all till it was
+quite close to our own road, as we called it&mdash;I mean the steep bit of
+rough cart-track leading to our little garden-gate.</p>
+
+<p>I was already crouched up in my pet place, when grandmamma called out to
+me. She was in the dining-room, but the doors were open.</p>
+
+<p>'No, grandmamma,' I replied. 'I don't see them at all. And I am sure
+they haven't passed Waving View in the last quarter-of-an-hour, for I
+have been here all that time.'</p>
+
+<p>'Waving View,' I must explain, was the name we had given to the short
+stretch of road I have just spoken of, because we used to wave
+handkerchiefs to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> each other&mdash;I at my watch-tower and Sharley from the
+pony-cart, at that point.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma came into the drawing-room a moment or two after that and
+stood behind me, looking out at the window.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;"><a name="I096" id="I096"></a>
+<img src="images/i096.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="&#39;I do wonder why they are so late.&#39;&mdash;P. 82." title="" />
+<span class="caption">&#39;I do wonder why they are so late.&#39;&mdash;P. 82.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>'Not that I could see them coming,' she said, 'till they are up the hill
+and close to us. But I do wonder why they are so late&mdash;half an hour
+late,' and she glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. 'I hope
+there is nothing the matter.'</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her as she said that, for I felt rather surprised. It was
+never granny's way to expect trouble before it comes. I saw that her
+face was rather anxious. But just as I was going to speak, to say some
+little word about its not being likely that anything was wrong, I gave
+one other glance towards Waving View. This time I was not disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, granny,' I exclaimed, 'there they are! I am sure it is them&mdash;I know
+the way they jog along so well&mdash;only, grandmamma, they are not waving?'</p>
+
+<p>And I think the anxious look must have come into my own face, for I
+remember saying, almost in a whisper, 'I do hope there is nothing the
+matter'&mdash;granny's very words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES</h3>
+
+<p>Grandmamma was the one to reassure me.</p>
+
+<p>'I scarcely think there can be anything wrong, as they are coming,' she
+said. 'You did not wave to them, either?'</p>
+
+<p>'No,' I said, 'I <i>did</i> wave, but I got tired of it. And it's always they
+who do it first. You see there's no use doing it except at that place.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, they will be here directly, and then I must give them a little
+scolding for being so unpunctual,' said grandmamma, cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>But that little scolding was never given.</p>
+
+<p>When the governess-cart stopped at our path there were only two figures
+in it&mdash;no, three, I should say, for there was the groom, and the two
+others were Nan and Vallie&mdash;Sharley was not there.</p>
+
+<p>I ran out to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>'Is Sharley ill?' I called out before I got to them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nan shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' she was beginning, but Vallie, who was much quicker, took the
+words out of her mouth&mdash;that was a way of Vallie's, and sometimes it
+used to make Nan rather vexed. But this morning she did not seem to
+notice it; she just shut up her lips again and stood silent with a very
+grave expression, while Vallie hurried on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Sharley's not ill, but mother kept her at home, and we're late because
+we went first to the telegraph office at Yukes'&mdash;Yukes is a <i>very</i> tiny
+village half a mile on the other side of Moor Court, where there is a
+telegraph office. 'Father's ill, Helena, and I'm afraid he's very ill,
+for as soon as Dr. Cobbe saw him this morning he said he must telegraph
+for another doctor to London.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I am so sorry,' and turning round at the sound
+of footsteps behind me I saw grandmamma, who had followed me out of the
+house. 'Granny,' I said, 'there <i>is</i> something the matter. Their father
+is very ill,' and I repeated what Vallie had just said.</p>
+
+<p>'I am very grieved to hear it,' said grandmamma. Afterwards she told me
+she had had a sort of presentiment that something was the matter. 'I am
+so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> sorry for your mother,' she went on. 'I wonder if I can be of use to
+her in any way.'</p>
+
+<p>Then Nan spoke, in her slow but very exact way.</p>
+
+<p>'Mother said,' she began, 'would you come to be with her this afternoon
+late, when the London doctor comes? She will send the brougham and it
+will bring you back again, if you would be so very kind. Mother is so
+afraid what the London doctor will say,' and poor Nan looked as if it
+was very difficult for her not to cry.</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly, I will come,' said grandmamma at once. 'Ask Mrs. Nestor to
+send for me as soon as you get home if she would like to have me. I
+suppose&mdash;' she went on, hesitating a little, 'you don't know what is the
+matter with your father?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is a sort of a cold that's got very bad,' said Vallie, 'it hurts him
+to breathe, and in the night he was nearly choking.'</p>
+
+<p>Granny looked grave at this. She knew that Mr. Nestor had not been
+strong for some time, and he was a very active man, who looked after
+everything on his property himself, and hunted a good deal, and thought
+nothing about taking care of himself. He was a nice kind man, and all
+his people were very fond of him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But she tried to cheer up the little girls and gave them their lesson as
+usual. It was much better to do so than to let them feel too unhappy.
+And I tried to be very kind and bright too&mdash;I saw that grandmamma wanted
+me to be the same way to them that she was.</p>
+
+<p>But after they were gone she spoke to me pretty openly about her fears
+for Mr. Nestor.</p>
+
+<p>'Dr. Cobbe would not have sent for a London doctor without good cause,'
+she said. 'All will depend on his opinion. It is possible that I may
+have to stay all night, Helena dear. You will not mind if I do?'</p>
+
+<p>I <i>did</i> mind, very much. But I tried to say I wouldn't. Still, I felt
+pretty miserable when the Moor Court carriage came to fetch grandmamma,
+and she drove away, leaving me for the first time in my life, or rather
+the first time I could remember, alone with Kezia.</p>
+
+<p>Kezia was very kind. She offered me to come into the kitchen and make
+cakes. But I was past eleven now&mdash;that is very different from being only
+eight. I did not care much for making cakes&mdash;I never have cared about
+cooking as some girls do, though I know it is a very good thing to
+understand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> about it, and grandmamma says I am to go through a regular
+course of it when I get to be seventeen or eighteen. But I knew Kezia's
+cakes were much better than any I could make, so I thanked her, but said
+no&mdash;I would rather read or sew.</p>
+
+<p>I had my tea all alone in the dining-room. Kezia was always so
+respectful about that sort of thing. Though she had been a nurse when I
+was only a tiny baby, she never forgot, as some old servants do, to
+treat me quite like a young lady, now I was growing older. She brought
+in my tea and set it all out just as carefully as when grandmamma was
+there, even more carefully in some ways, for she had made some little
+scones that I was very fond of, and she had got out some strawberry jam.</p>
+
+<p>But I could not help feeling melancholy. I know it is wrong to believe
+in presentiments, or at least to think much about them, though
+<i>sometimes</i> even very wise people like grandmamma cannot help believing
+in them a little. But I really do think that there are times in one's
+life when a sort of sadness about the future does seem <i>meant</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And I had been so happy for so long. And troubles must come.</p>
+
+<p>I said that over to myself as I sat alone after tea,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> and then all of a
+sudden it struck me that I was very selfish. This trouble was far, far
+worse for the Nestors than for me. Possibly by this time the London
+doctor had had to tell them that their father would never get better,
+and here was I thinking more, I am afraid, of the dulness of being one
+night without dear granny than of the sorrow that was perhaps coming
+over Sharley and the others of being without their father for always.</p>
+
+<p>For I scarcely think my 'presentiments' would have troubled me much
+except for the being alone and missing granny so.</p>
+
+<p>I made up my mind to be sensible and not fanciful. I got out what I
+called my 'secret work,' which was at that time a footstool I was
+embroidering for grandmamma's next birthday, and I did a good bit of it.
+That made me feel rather better, and when my bedtime came it was nice to
+think I had nothing to do but to go to sleep and stay asleep to make
+to-morrow morning come quickly.</p>
+
+<p>I fell asleep almost at once. But when I woke rather with a start&mdash;and I
+could not tell what had awakened me&mdash;it was still quite, quite dark,
+certainly not to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear!' I thought, 'what a bother! Here I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> am as wide awake as
+anything, and I so seldom wake at all. Just this night when I wanted to
+sleep straight through.'</p>
+
+<p>I lay still. Suddenly I heard some faint sounds. Some one was moving
+about downstairs. Could it be Kezia up still? It must be very
+late&mdash;quite the middle of the night, I fancied.</p>
+
+<p>The sounds went on&mdash;doors shutting softly, then a slight creak on the
+stairs, as if some one were coming up slowly. I was not exactly
+frightened. I never thought of burglars&mdash;I don't think there has been a
+burglary at Middlemoor within the memory of man&mdash;but my heart did beat
+rather faster than usual and I listened, straining my ears and scarcely
+daring to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last the steps stopped at my door, and some one began to turn
+the handle. I <i>almost</i> screamed. But&mdash;in one instant came the dear
+voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Is my darling awake?' so gently, it was scarcely above a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, granny, dear, dear granny, is it you?' I said, and every bit of me,
+heart and ears and everything, seemed to give one throb of delight. I
+shall never forget it. It was like the day I ran into her arms down the
+steep garden-path.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Did I startle you?' she went on. 'Generally you sleep so soundly that I
+hoped I would not awake you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I was awake, dear grandmamma,' I said, 'and oh, I am so glad you have
+come home.'</p>
+
+<p>I clung to her as if I would never let her go, and then she told me the
+news from Moor Court. The London doctor had spoken gravely, but still
+hopefully. With great care, the greatest care, he trusted Mr. Nestor
+would quite recover.</p>
+
+<p>'So I came home to my little girl,' said grandmamma, 'though I have
+promised poor Mrs. Nestor to go to her again to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't mind anything if you are here at night,' I said, with a sigh of
+comfort.</p>
+
+<p>And then she kissed me again and I turned round and was asleep in five
+minutes, and when I woke the next time it <i>was</i> morning; the sunshine
+was streaming in at the window.</p>
+
+<p>There were some weeks after that of a good deal of anxiety about Mr.
+Nestor, though he went on pretty well. Grandmamma went over every two or
+three days, just to cheer Mrs. Nestor a little&mdash;not that there was
+really anything to do, for they had trained nurses, and everything money
+could get.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> The girls went on with their lessons as usual, which was of
+course much better for them. But in those few weeks Sharley almost
+seemed to grow into a woman.</p>
+
+<p>I felt rather 'left behind' by her, for I was only eleven, and as soon
+as the first great anxiety about Mr. Nestor was over I did not think
+very much more about it. Nor did Nan and Vallie. We were quite satisfied
+that he would soon be well again, and that everything would go on as
+usual. Only Sharley looked grave.</p>
+
+<p>At last the blow fell. It was a very bad blow to me, and in one
+way&mdash;which, however, I did not understand till some time later&mdash;even
+worse to grandmamma, though she said nothing to hint at such a thing in
+the least.</p>
+
+<p>And it was a blow to the Nestor children, for they loved their home and
+their life dearly, and had no wish for any change.</p>
+
+<p>This was it. They were all to go abroad almost immediately, for the
+whole winter at any rate. The doctors were perfectly certain that it was
+necessary for Mr. Nestor, and he would not hear of going alone, and Mrs.
+Nestor could not bear the idea of a separation from her children.
+Besides&mdash;they were very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> rich, there were no difficulties in the way of
+their travelling most comfortably, and having everything they could want
+wherever they went to.</p>
+
+<p>To me it was the greatest trouble I had ever known&mdash;and I really do
+think the little girls&mdash;Sharley too&mdash;minded it more on my account than
+on any other.</p>
+
+<p>But it had to be.</p>
+
+<p>Almost before we had quite taken in that it was really going to be, they
+were off&mdash;everything packed up, a courier engaged&mdash;rooms secured at the
+best hotel in the place they were going to&mdash;for all these things can be
+done in no time when people have lots of money, grandmamma said&mdash;and
+they were gone! Moor Court shut up and deserted, except for the few
+servants left in charge, to keep it clean and in good order.</p>
+
+<p>I only went there once all that winter, and I never went again. I could
+not bear it. For in among the trees where we played I came upon the
+traces of our last paper-chase, and passing the side of the house it was
+even worse. For the schoolrooms and play-room were in that wing, and
+above them the nurseries, where Vallie used to rub her little nose
+against the panes when she was shut up with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> one of her bad colds. Some
+cleaning was going on, for it was like Longfellow's poem exactly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 21em;">'I saw the nursery windows</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 22em;">Wide open to the air,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 21em;">But the faces of the children,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 22em;">They were no longer there.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I just squeezed grandmamma's hand without speaking, and we turned away.</p>
+
+<p>It <i>is</i> true that troubles do not often come alone. That winter was one
+of the very severe ones I have spoken of, that come now and then in that
+part of Middleshire.</p>
+
+<p>For the Nestors' sake it made us all the more glad that they were safely
+away from weather which, in his delicate state, would very probably have
+killed their father. I think this was our very first thought when the
+snow began to fall, only two or three weeks after they left, and went on
+falling till the roads were almost impassable, and remained lying for I
+am afraid to say how long, so intense was the frost that set in.</p>
+
+<p>I thought it rather good fun just at the beginning, and wished I could
+learn to skate. Grandmamma did not seem to care about my doing so, which
+I was rather surprised at, as she had often told me stories<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> of how fond
+she was of skating when she was young, and how clever papa and Uncle Guy
+were at it.</p>
+
+<p>She said I had no one to teach me, and when I told her that I was sure
+Tom Linden, a nephew of the vicar's who was staying with his uncle and
+aunt just then, would help me, she found some other objection. Tom was a
+very stupid, very good-natured boy. I had got to know him a little at
+the Nestors. He was slow and heavy and rather fat. I tried to make
+granny laugh by saying he would be a good buffer to fall upon. I saw she
+was looking grave, and I felt a little cross at her not wanting me to
+skate, and I persisted about it.</p>
+
+<p>'Do let me, grandmamma,' I said. 'I can order a pair of skates at
+Barridge's. They don't keep the best kind in stock, but I know they can
+get them.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, my dear,' said grandmamma at last, very decidedly. 'I am not at all
+sure that it would be nice for you&mdash;it would have been different if the
+Nestors had been here. And besides, there are several things you need to
+have bought for you much more than skates. You must have extra warm
+clothing this winter.'</p>
+
+<p>She did not say right out that she did not know where the money was to
+come from for my wants&mdash;as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> for her own, when did the darling ever think
+of <i>them</i>?&mdash;but she gave a little sigh, and the thought did come into my
+head for a moment&mdash;was grandmamma troubled about money? But it did not
+stay there. We had been so comfortable the last few years that I had
+really thought less about being poor than when I was quite little.</p>
+
+<p>And other things made me forget about it. For a very few days after
+that, most unfortunately, I got ill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>TWO LETTERS</h3>
+
+<p>It was only a bad cold. Except for having to stay in the house, I would
+not have minded it very much, for after the first few days, when I was
+feverish and miserable, I did not feel very bad. And like a child, I
+thought every day that I should be all right the next.</p>
+
+<p>I daresay I should have got over it much quicker if the weather had not
+been so severe. But it was really awfully cold. Even my own sense told
+me it would be mad to think of going out. So I got fidgety and
+discontented, and made myself look worse than I really was.</p>
+
+<p>And for the very first time in my life there seemed to come a little
+cloud, a little coldness, between dear grandmamma and me. Speaking about
+it since then, <i>she</i> says it was not all my fault, but <i>I</i> think it was.
+I was selfish and thoughtless. She was dull and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> low-spirited, and I had
+never seen her like that before. And I did not know all the reasons
+there were for her being so, and I felt a kind of irritation at it. Even
+when she tried, as she often and often did, to throw it off and cheer me
+up in some little way by telling me stories, or proposing some new game,
+or new fancy-work, I would not meet her half-way, but would answer
+pettishly that I was tired of all those things. And I was vexed at
+several little changes in our way of living. All that winter we sat in
+the dining-room, and never had a fire in the drawing-room, and our food
+was plainer than I ever remembered it. Granny used to have special
+things for me&mdash;beef-tea and beaten-up eggs and port-wine&mdash;but I hated
+having them all alone and seeing her eating scarcely anything.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't want these messy things as if I was really ill,' I said. 'Why
+don't we have nice little dinners and teas as we used?'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma never answered these questions plainly; she would make some
+little excuse about not feeling hungry in frosty weather, or that the
+tradespeople did not like sending often. But once or twice I caught her
+looking at me when she did not know I saw her, and then there was
+something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> in her eyes which made me think I was a horridly selfish
+child. And yet I did not <i>mean</i> to be. I really did not understand, and
+it was rather trying to be cooped up for so long, in a room scarcely
+bigger than a cupboard, after my free open life of the last three years
+or so.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cobbe came once or twice at the beginning of my cold and looked
+rather grave. Then he did not come again for two or three weeks&mdash;I think
+he had told grandmamma to let him know if I got worse.</p>
+
+<p>And one day when I had really made myself feverish by my fidgety
+grumbling, and then being sorry and crying, which brought on a fit of
+coughing, grandmamma got so unhappy that she tucked me up on the sofa by
+the fire, and went off herself, though it was late in the afternoon, to
+fetch him herself. She would not let Kezia go because she wanted to
+speak to him alone; I did not know it at the time, but I remember waking
+up and hearing voices near me, and there were the doctor and grandmamma.
+She was in her indoors dress just as usual, for me not to guess she had
+been out.</p>
+
+<p>I sat up, feeling much the better for my sleep. Dr. Cobbe laughed and
+joked&mdash;that was his way&mdash;he listened to my breathing and pommelled me
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> told me I was a little humbug. Then he went off into Kezia's
+kitchen, where there <i>had</i> to be a tiny fire, with grandmamma, and a few
+minutes later I heard him saying good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma came back to me looking happier than for some time past. The
+doctor, she has told me since, really did assure her that there was
+nothing serious the matter with me, that I was a growing child and must
+be well fed and kept cheerful, as I was inclined to be nervous and was
+not exactly robust.</p>
+
+<p>And the relief to grandmamma was great. That evening she was more like
+her old self than she had been for long, even though I daresay she was
+awake half the night thinking over the doctor's advice, and wondering
+what more she <i>could</i> do to get enough money to give me all I needed.</p>
+
+<p>For some of her money-matters had gone wrong. That I did not know till
+long afterwards. It was just about the time of Mr. Nestor's illness, and
+it was not till the Moor Court family had left that she found out the
+worst of it&mdash;that for two or three years <i>at least</i> we should be thirty
+or forty pounds a year poorer than we had been.</p>
+
+<p>It <i>was</i> hard on her&mdash;coming at the very same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> time as the extra money
+for the lessons left off! And the severe winter and my cold all added to
+it. It even made it more difficult for her to hear of other pupils, or
+to get any orders for her beautiful fancy-work. No visitors would come
+to Middlemoor <i>this</i> winter, though when it was mild they sometimes did.</p>
+
+<p>Still, from the day of Dr. Cobbe's visit things improved a little&mdash;for
+the time at least. And in the end it was a good thing that grandmamma
+was not tempted to try her eyes with any embroidery again, as she really
+might have made herself blind. It had been such a blessing that she did
+not need to do it during the years she gave lessons to Sharley and her
+sisters.</p>
+
+<p>I went on getting better pretty steadily, especially once I was allowed
+to go out a little, though, as it was a very cold spring, it was only
+for some time <i>very</i> little, just an hour or so in the best part of the
+day. And grandmamma followed Dr. Cobbe's advice, though I never shall
+understand how she managed to do so. She was so determined to be
+cheerful that when I look back upon it now it almost makes me cry. I had
+all the nourishing things to eat that it was possible to get, and how
+thoughtless and ungrateful I was! My appetite was not very good,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> and I
+remember actually grumbling at having to take beef-tea, and beaten-up
+eggs, and things like that at odd times. I scarcely like to say it, but
+in my heart I do not believe grandmamma had enough to eat that winter.</p>
+
+<p>About Easter&mdash;or rather at the time for the big school Easter holidays,
+which does not always match real Easter&mdash;we had a pleasant surprise. At
+least it was a pleasant surprise for grandmamma&mdash;I don't know that I
+cared about it particularly, and I certainly little thought what would
+come of it!</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon Gerard Nestor walked in.</p>
+
+<p>Granny's face quite lighted up, and for a moment or two I felt very
+excited.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you all come home?' I exclaimed. 'I haven't had a letter from
+Sharley for ever so long&mdash;perhaps&mdash;perhaps she meant to surprise me,' I
+had been going to say, but something in Jerry's face stopped me. He
+looked rather grave; not that he was ever anything but quiet.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' he said, 'I only wish they <i>were</i> all back, or likely to come. I'm
+afraid there's no chance of it. The doctors out there won't hear of it
+this year at all. Just when father was hoping to arrange for coming back
+soon, they found out something or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> other unsatisfactory about him, and
+now it is settled that he must stay out of England another whole year at
+least. They are speaking of Algeria or Egypt for next winter.'</p>
+
+<p>My face fell. I was on the point of crying. Gerard looked very
+sympathising.</p>
+
+<p>'I did not myself mind it so much till I came down here,' he said. 'But
+it is so lonely and dull at Moor Court. I hope you will let me come here
+a great deal, Mrs. Wingfield. I mean to work hard at my foreign
+languages these holidays&mdash;it will give me something to do. You see it
+wasn't worth while my going out to Hy&egrave;res for only three weeks, and I
+hoped even they might be coming back. So I asked to come down here. I
+didn't think it could be so dull.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are all alone at home?' said grandmamma. 'Yes, it must be very
+lonely. I shall be delighted to read with you as much as you like. I am
+not very busy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you,' said Gerard. 'Well, I only hope you won't have too much of
+me. May I stay to tea to-day?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly,' said grandmamma. But I noticed&mdash;I don't think Gerard
+did&mdash;that her face had grown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> rather anxious-looking as he spoke. 'If
+you like,' she went on, 'we can glance over your books, some of them are
+still here, and settle on a little work at once.'</p>
+
+<p>'All right,' said he. But then he added, rather abruptly, 'You are not
+looking well, Mrs. Wingfield? I think you have got thinner. And Helena
+looks rather white, though she has not grown much.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt vexed at his saying I had not grown much.</p>
+
+<p>'It's no wonder I am white,' I said in a surly tone. 'I have been mewed
+up in the house almost ever since Sharley and all of them went away.'</p>
+
+<p>And then grandmamma explained about my having been ill.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm very sorry,' said Jerry, 'but you look worse than Helena, Mrs.
+Wingfield.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt crosser and crosser. I fancied he meant to reproach me with
+grandmamma's looking ill, even though it made me uneasy too. I glanced
+at her&mdash;a faint pink flush had come over her face at his words.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>I</i> don't think granny looks ill at all,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'No, indeed, I am very well,' she said, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard said no more, but I know he thought me a selfish spoilt child.
+And from that moment he set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> himself to watch grandmamma and to find out
+if anything was really the matter.</p>
+
+<p>He <i>did</i> find out, and that pretty quickly, I fancy, that we were much
+poorer. But it was very difficult for him to do anything to help
+grandmamma. She was so dignified, and in some ways reserved. She got a
+letter from Mrs. Nestor a few days later, thanking her for reading with
+Jerry again, and saying that of course the lessons must be arranged
+about as before. And it vexed her a very little. (She has told me about
+it since.) Perhaps she was feeling unusually sensitive and depressed
+just then. But however that may have been, she wrote a letter to Mrs.
+Nestor, which made her really <i>afraid</i> of offering to pay. It was not as
+if there was time for a good many lessons, granny wrote&mdash;would not Mrs.
+Nestor let her render this very small service as a friend?</p>
+
+<p>And Jerry did not know what he <i>could</i> do. It was not the season for
+game, except rabbits&mdash;and he did send rabbits two or three times&mdash;and I
+know now that he scarcely dared to stay to tea, or <i>not</i> to stay, for if
+he refused granny seemed hurt.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, nice as he was, it was almost a relief when he went away
+back to school.</p>
+
+<p>Still things were not so bad as in winter. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> really all right
+again, and a little money come in to grandmamma about May or June that
+she had not dared to hope for. We got on pretty well that summer.</p>
+
+<p>None of the Nestors came to Moor Court at all. Gerard joined them for
+the long holidays in Switzerland. Mrs. Nestor wrote now and then to
+granny, and Sharley to me, but of course there was not the least hint of
+what Gerard had told them. I think they believed and hoped he had
+exaggerated it&mdash;he was the sort of boy to fancy things worse than they
+were if he cared about people, I think.</p>
+
+<p>And so it got on to be the early autumn again. I think it was about the
+middle of September when the first beginning of the great change in our
+lives came.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold already, and the weather prophets were talking of another
+severe winter. Grandmamma watched the signs of it anxiously. She kept
+comparing it with the same time last year till I got quite tired of the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>'Really, grandmamma,' I said one morning, 'what does it matter? If it is
+very cold we must have big fires and keep ourselves warm. And one thing
+I know&mdash;I am not going to be shut up again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> like last winter. I am going
+to get skates and have some fun as soon as ever the frost comes.'</p>
+
+<p>I said it half jokingly, but still I was ready to be cross too. I had
+not improved in some ways since I was ill. I was less thoughtful for
+grandmamma and quite annoyed if she did not do exactly what I wanted, or
+if she seemed interested in anything but me. In short, I was very
+spoilt.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer me about the skates, for at that moment Kezia brought
+in the letters. It was not by any means every morning that we got any,
+and it was always rather an excitement when we saw the postman turning
+up our path.</p>
+
+<p>That morning there were two letters. One was for me from Sharley. I knew
+at once it was from her by the foreign stamp and the thin paper
+envelope, even before I looked at the writing. I was so pleased that I
+rushed off with it to my favourite window-seat, without noticing
+grandmamma, who had quietly taken her own letter from the little tray
+Kezia handed it to her on and was examining it in a half-puzzled way. I
+remembered afterwards catching a glimpse of the expression on her face,
+but at the moment I gave no thought to it.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing <i>very</i> particular in Sharley's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> letter. It was very
+affectionate&mdash;full of longings to be coming home again, even though she
+allowed that their present life was very bright and interesting. I was
+just laughing at a description of Pert and Quick going to market on
+their own account, and how they bargained with the old peasant women,
+when a slight sound&mdash;<i>was</i> it a sound or only a sort of feeling in the
+air?&mdash;made me look up from the open sheet before me, and glance over at
+grandmamma.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I felt quite frightened. She was leaning back in her chair,
+looking very white, and I could almost have thought she was fainting,
+except that her lips were moving as if she were speaking softly to
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>I flew across the room to her.</p>
+
+<p>'Granny,' I said, '<i>dear</i> granny, what is it? Are you ill&mdash;is anything
+the matter?'</p>
+
+<p>Just at first, I think, I forgot about the letter lying on her lap&mdash;but
+before she spoke she touched it with her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>'I am only a little startled, dear child,' she said, 'startled and&mdash;&mdash;'
+I could not catch the other word she said, she spoke it so softly, but I
+think it was 'thankful.' 'No, there is nothing wrong, but you will
+understand my feeling rather upset when I tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> you that this letter is
+from Cosmo&mdash;you know whom I mean, Helena, Cosmo Vandeleur, my nephew,
+who has not written to me all these years.'</p>
+
+<p>At once I was full of interest, not unmixed&mdash;and I think it was
+natural&mdash;with some indignation.</p>
+
+<p>'So he is alive and well, I suppose?' I said, rather bitterly. 'Well,
+granny, I hope you will not trouble about him any more. He must be a
+horrid man, after all your kindness to him when he was a boy, never to
+have written or seemed to care if you were alive or dead.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear,' said grandmamma, whose colour was returning, though her
+voice still sounded weak and tremulous&mdash;'no, dear. You must not think of
+him in that way. Careless he has certainly been, but he has not lost his
+affection for me. I will explain it all to you soon, but I must think it
+over first. I feel still so upset, I can scarcely take it in.'</p>
+
+<p>She stopped, and her breath seemed to come in gasps. I was not a stupid
+child, and I had plenty of common sense.</p>
+
+<p>'Granny, dear,' I said, 'don't try to talk any more just now. I will
+call Kezia, and she must give you some water, or tea, or something. And
+I won't call Mr. Vandeleur horrid if it vexes you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Kezia knew how to take care of grandmamma, though it was very, very
+seldom she was ever faint or nervous or anything of that kind.</p>
+
+<p>And something told me that the best <i>I</i> could do was to leave dear
+granny alone for a little with the faithful servant who had shared her
+joys and sorrows for so long.</p>
+
+<p>So I took my own letter&mdash;Sharley's letter I mean, and ran upstairs to
+fetch my hat and jacket.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm going out for a little, grandmamma,' I said, putting my head in
+again for half a second at the drawing-room door as I passed. 'It isn't
+cold this morning, and I've got a long letter from Sharley to read over
+and over again.'</p>
+
+<p>'Take care of yourself, darling,' said granny, and as I shut the door I
+heard her say to Kezia, 'dear child&mdash;she has such tact and
+thoughtfulness for her age. It is for her I am so thankful, Kezia.'</p>
+
+<p>I was pleased to be praised. I have always loved praise&mdash;too much, I am
+afraid. But my conscience told me I had <i>not</i> been thoughtful for
+grandmamma lately, not as thoughtful as I might have been certainly.
+This feeling troubled me on one side, and on the other I was dying with
+curiosity to know what it was granny was thankful about. The mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> fact
+of a letter having come from that 'horrid, selfish, ungrateful man,' as
+I still called him to myself, though I would not speak of him so to
+grandmamma, could not be anything to be so thankful about&mdash;at least not
+to be thankful for <i>me</i>. What could it be? What had he written to say?</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid that Sharley's letter scarcely had justice done to it the
+second time I read it through&mdash;between every line would come up the
+thought of what grandmamma had said, and the wondering what she could
+mean. And besides that, the uncomfortable feeling that I was not as good
+as she thought me&mdash;that I did not deserve all the love and anxiety she
+lavished on me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A GREAT CHANGE</h3>
+
+<p>Perhaps here it will be best for me to tell straight off what the
+contents of Mr. Vandeleur's letter were. Not, I mean, to go into all as
+to when and how grandmamma told me about it, with 'she said's' and 'I
+said's.' Besides, it would not be quite correct to tell it that way, for
+as a matter of fact I did not understand everything <i>then</i> as I do now
+that I am several years older, and it would be difficult not to mix up
+what I have since come to know with the ideas I then had&mdash;ideas which
+were in some ways mistaken and childish.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, how do you think Cousin Cosmo, as I was told to call him,
+had come to write again after all those years of silence? What had put
+it into his head?</p>
+
+<p>The explanation is rather curious. It all came from Gerard Nestor's
+being at Moor Court that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> Easter, and feeling so sorry for grandmamma
+and so sure that she was in trouble.</p>
+
+<p>I have told, as we knew afterwards, that he had written to his people,
+but that grandmamma's way of answering made them think, and hope, that
+he had fancied more than was really the matter, and besides it was
+difficult for the Nestors, who were not <i>relations</i>, to do anything to
+help grandmamma, unless she had in some way given them her confidence.
+At that time they were hoping to come home the following spring, and
+then, probably, Mrs. Nestor would have found out more.</p>
+
+<p>But when Gerard first went back to school his head was full of it. He
+had not been <i>told</i> anything, it was only his own suspicions, so there
+was no harm in his speaking of it, as he did, though quite privately, to
+his great friend, Harry Vandeleur.</p>
+
+<p>And Harry gave him some confidences in return. Lady Bridget Woodstone,
+the old lady who was guardian to him and his brother, had lately
+died&mdash;the boys had spent their last holidays at school, but a new
+guardian had now appeared on the scene. This was a cousin of theirs
+whom, till then, they had never heard of, and this cousin was no other
+than grandmamma's nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gerard quite started when he heard the name, which he remembered quite
+well. Harry said that Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur was grave and quiet, he and
+Lindsay felt rather afraid of him, but they would know better what sort
+of person he was when they had spent the holidays with him.</p>
+
+<p>'We are to go to his house, or at least to a house he has got in Devon,
+near the sea-side, next August,' he told Gerard, and he promised that he
+would ask his guardian if he had any relation called Mrs. Wingfield, and
+if he found it was the same, he would tell him what Gerard had said, and
+how all these years she had been hoping to hear from him. For granny had
+told Gerard almost as much as she had told me of how strange it was that
+'Cosmo' never wrote.</p>
+
+<p>Well now you&mdash;by 'you' of course I mean whoever reads this story, if
+ever any one does&mdash;you begin to see how it came about. Harry Vandeleur
+<i>did</i> tell his guardian about us, or about grandmamma, and found out
+that she <i>was</i> his aunt. Mr. Vandeleur was very much startled, Harry
+said, to hear about how very differently she was living now, and he
+wrote down the address and told Harry he would make further enquiries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That was all Harry knew, for Mr. Vandeleur was very reserved, and Harry
+and Lindsay did not feel as if they knew him any better after the
+holidays than before. Mrs. Vandeleur was very ill, though they thought
+she would have liked to be kind; they were always being told not to make
+a noise, and so they stayed out-of-doors as much as they could. It was
+rather dull (<i>very</i> dull, I should think), and they hoped they would not
+spend their next holidays there; they would almost rather stay at
+school.</p>
+
+<p>It was August or September when Mr. Vandeleur heard about grandmamma. He
+did not at once write to her; he made enquiries of the lawyer who had
+for many years managed, grandpapa's and papa's affairs, and he found it
+was only too true, that granny was <i>very</i> badly off. But even then he
+did not write immediately, for Mrs. Vandeleur got worse and for a little
+while they were afraid she was going to die.</p>
+
+<p>He told granny this in his letter, but went on to say that Mrs.
+Vandeleur was better, and the doctors hoped she might be moved home to
+their house in London after the new year. In the meantime he was in
+great difficulty what to do, he had to be in London a good deal, and it
+was a pity to shut up the house, as they had made it all very nice, and
+they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> had good servants. And even when Mrs. Vandeleur was much better
+she must not be troubled about housekeeping or anything for a long time,
+and besides this, there was a new responsibility upon him, which he
+would tell granny about afterwards. He meant the care of the two boys,
+but he did not speak of them then.</p>
+
+<p>Some part of this, grandmamma told me that very evening; she also told
+me how sorry her nephew was about his long silence, though, as I think I
+said before, he <i>had</i> written and got no answer,&mdash;a letter which she had
+never received.</p>
+
+<p>Here I find I must change my plan a little after all, and go into
+conversation again. For as I am writing there comes back to me one part
+of our talk that evening so clearly, that I think I can remember almost
+every word.</p>
+
+<p>We had got as far as grandmamma telling me most of what I have now
+written down, but still I did not see why the letter had so upset her or
+why she had whispered something to herself about being 'thankful.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well,' I said, 'I am glad he has written if it pleases you, grandmamma.
+But I don't think I want ever to see him.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'You must not be prejudiced, Helena dear,' she answered. 'I think it
+very likely you will see him, and before very long. I have not yet told
+you what he proposes. He wants us to go to&mdash;to pay him a long visit in
+London. He says I should be a very great help to him and Agnes&mdash;Agnes is
+his wife&mdash;as I could take charge of things for her.'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course you would be a great help,' I said. 'But I think it is rather
+cool of him to expect you to give up your own home and go off there just
+to be of use to them.'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma sighed. She did not want to tell me too much of her
+increasing anxiety about money, and yet without doing so it was
+difficult for her to make me understand how really kind Mr. Vandeleur's
+proposal was, and how it had not come a day too soon.</p>
+
+<p>'There are more reasons than that for my accepting his invitation,' she
+said. 'It will be of advantage to us in many ways not to spend the
+coming winter here, but in a warm, large house. If we had weather like
+last year I should dread it very much. London is on the whole very
+healthy in winter, in spite of the fogs. And you are growing old enough
+to take in new ideas, Helena, and to benefit by seeing something more of
+life.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I felt very strange, almost giddy, with the thought of such a change.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you really mean, grandmamma,' I said, 'that&mdash;that you are thinking
+of going there <i>soon</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very soon,' she answered, 'almost at once. It may get cold and wintry
+here any day, and besides that, my nephew is very anxious to settle his
+own plans as quickly as possible.'</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing for a minute or two. In my heart I was not at all sorry
+at the prospect of a winter in London, even though I naturally shrank
+from leaving dear old Windy Gap, the only home I had ever known. But the
+sort of spoilt way I had got into kept me from expressing the pleasure I
+felt&mdash;that one side of me felt, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't believe he cares about us,' I said at last rather grumpily. 'I
+am sure he is a very selfish man.'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma looked distressed, but she was wise, too. She saw I was
+really inclined to be 'naughty' about it.</p>
+
+<p>'Helena, my dearest child,' she said, and though she spoke most kindly I
+heard by her voice that she would be firm, 'you must not yield to
+prejudice, and you must trust me. This invitation is the very best thing
+that could have come to us at present, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> am deeply grateful for it.
+It is rather startling, I know, but there should be a good deal of
+pleasure for you in our new prospects. And I am sure you will see this
+in a day or two. Now go to bed, my darling. To-morrow we shall have a
+great deal to talk over, and you must keep well and strong so as to be
+able to help me.'</p>
+
+<p>She kissed me tenderly, and I whispered 'Good-night, dear grandmamma,'
+gently and affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>But as soon as I got upstairs and was alone in my own little room, I
+burst into tears. I daresay it was only natural. Still, I see now that
+my feelings were not altogether what they should have been. There was a
+great deal of selfishness and spoiltness mixed up with them.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>After that evening I have rather a confused remembrance of the next two
+or three weeks. Things seemed to hurry on in a bewildering way, and of
+course it was all the more bewildering to me, as I had never known any
+change or uprooting of the kind in my life.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma was exceedingly busy. She had to write very often to Mr.
+Vandeleur, and he replied in a most business-like way, generally, I
+think, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> return. It was no longer a great event for the postman to be
+seen turning up our path, and as well as letters he sometimes now
+brought parcels.</p>
+
+<p>For grandmamma was determined that we should both look nice when we
+first went to London to live in her nephew's big house, where there were
+so many servants.</p>
+
+<p>'We must do him credit,' she said to me, with a smile. I understood what
+she meant, and I had a feeling of pride about it, too, and I was very
+pleased to have some new dresses and hats and other things. But with me
+there was no good feeling to my cousin mixed up in all this. I now know
+that there was reason for grandmamma's wish to gratify him; he behaved
+most generously and thoughtfully about everything, sending her more than
+sufficient money for all we needed, and doing it in such a nice
+way&mdash;just as a son who had grown rich might take pleasure in helping a
+mother to whom he owed more than mere money could ever repay.</p>
+
+<p>But though grandmamma read out to me bits of his letters in which he was
+always repeating how grateful he was to her for coming to his aid in his
+difficulties, she did not tell me the whole particulars of her
+arrangements with him. He would not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> liked it, and I was really too
+young to have been told all these money-matters.</p>
+
+<p>I did notice that there was never any mention of me in what she read to
+me. And now I know that Mr. Vandeleur did <i>not</i> particularly rejoice at
+the prospect of my living with them too. He had proposed that I should
+be sent to some very good school, for he knew nothing of children,
+especially of little girls. I think he believed they were even more
+tiresome and mischievous and bothering in every way than boys.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma would not listen for an instant to this proposal. Her first
+and greatest duty in life was her granddaughter, 'Paul's little girl,'
+and she would do <i>anything</i> rather than be separated from me, especially
+as I was delicate and required care. In reality I was not nearly as
+delicate as she thought. But I daresay it did not add to my cousin's
+wish to have me in his house to hear that I was considered so.</p>
+
+<p>Among the other things that grandmamma had to arrange about was what to
+do with Windy Gap. In her heart I believe she thought it very unlikely
+that it would ever be our home again, but she did not say anything of
+this kind to me. She went off one day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> to Mr. Timbs to ask him to try to
+let it as it was, with our furniture in. He promised to do his best, but
+did not think it likely it would let in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>'And by the spring we shall be coming back again,' I said, when granny
+told me this. I had not gone with her to Mr. Timbs; she had made some
+little excuse for not taking me.</p>
+
+<p>To this she did not reply, and I thought no more about it, but I was
+glad to hear that Kezia was to stay on in the cottage to keep it all
+aired and in nice order. And I said to her secretly that if granny and I
+were not happy in Chichester Square&mdash;that was the name of the gloomy,
+rather old-fashioned square, filled with handsome gloomy houses, where
+Mr. Vandeleur lived&mdash;it was nice to feel that we had only to drive to
+the station and get into the train and be 'home' again in four or five
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>Kezia smiled, though I think in her heart she was much more inclined to
+cry, and said she hoped to hear of our being very happy indeed in
+London, though of course she would look forward to seeing us again.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget the day we left our dear little cottage. It had
+begun to be wintry, a sprinkling of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> snow was on the ground and the air
+was quite frosty, though the morning was bright. I did feel so
+strange&mdash;sorrowful yet excited, and as if I really did not know who I
+was. And though the tears were running down poor Kezia's face when she
+bade us good-bye at the window of the railway carriage, I could not have
+cried if I had wished. We had a three miles' drive to the station. It
+was only the third or fourth time in my life I had ever been there, and
+I had never travelled for longer than half an hour or so, when granny
+had taken me, and once or twice Sharley and the others, to one of the
+neighbouring towns famed for their beautiful cathedrals.</p>
+
+<p>We travelled second class. I thought it very comfortable, and it was
+very nice to have foot-warmers, which I had never seen before. My
+spirits rose steadily and even grandmamma's face had a pinky colour,
+which made her look quite young.</p>
+
+<p>'I should like to travel like this for a week without stopping,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>Granny smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think you would,' she said. 'You will feel you have had quite
+enough of it by the time we get to London.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And after an hour or two, especially when the short winter afternoon
+grew misty and dull, so that I could scarcely distinguish the landscape
+as we flew past, I began to agree with her.</p>
+
+<p>'It will be quite dark when we get to Chichester Square,' said
+grandmamma. 'You must wait for your first real sight of London till
+to-morrow. I hope the weather will not be foggy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Will there be flys at the station?' I asked, 'or did you write to order
+one?'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear, that would not be necessary. There are always lots of
+four-wheelers and hansoms. But Mr. Vandeleur is sending a footman to
+meet us and he will find us a cab.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hasn't he got a carriage then?' said I.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'Not in London. Their carriages and horses are in the country still for
+Mrs. Vandeleur. They will not be sent back to London till she comes.'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope that won't be for a good long while,' I said to myself, rather
+unfeelingly, for I might have remembered that as soon as my cousin's
+wife was well enough she was to return. So her staying away long would
+mean her not getting well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Their being away&mdash;for Mr. Vandeleur was not in London himself just
+then&mdash;was the part that pleased me the most of the whole plan. I thought
+it would be great fun to be alone in London with grandmamma, and I had
+been making lists of the things I wanted her to do and the places we
+should go to see. It never struck me that she could have any one or
+anything to think of but me myself!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>NO. 29 CHICHESTER SQUARE</h3>
+
+<p>It was quite dark when we arrived at Paddington Station, and long before
+then, as grandmamma had prophesied, I had had much more than enough of
+the railway journey at first so pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>I was tired and sleepy. It all seemed very, very strange and confusing
+to me&mdash;the huge railway station, the dimly burning gas-lamps, the
+bustle, the lots of people. For, as I have to keep reminding you, there
+is scarcely ever nowadays a child who leads so quiet and unchangeful a
+life as mine had been. I felt in a dream. If I had been less tired in my
+body I daresay my mind and fancy would have been amused and excited by
+it all. As it was, I just clung to grandmamma stupidly, wondering how
+she kept her head, wondering still more, when I heard her suddenly
+talking to some one&mdash;who turned out to be Mr. Vandeleur's footman&mdash;how
+in the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> she or he, or both of them, had managed to find each other
+out in the crowd!</p>
+
+<p>I did not speak. After a while I remember finding myself, and granny of
+course, safe in a four-wheeler, which seemed narrow and stuffy compared
+to the Middlemoor flys, and jolted along with a terrible rattle and
+noise, so that I could scarcely distinguish the words grandmamma said
+when once or twice she spoke to me. I daresay a good deal of the noise
+was outside the cab, and some of it perhaps inside my own head, for it
+did not altogether stop even when <i>we</i> did&mdash;that is to say when we drew
+up at 29 Chichester Square.</p>
+
+<p>The house was very large&mdash;the hall looked to me almost as large as the
+hall at Moor Court. It was not really so, but I could scarcely judge of
+anything correctly that night. I was so very tired.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;"><a name="I142" id="I142"></a>
+<img src="images/i142.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
+respectfully to grandmamma.&mdash;P. 126." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
+respectfully to grandmamma.&mdash;P. 126.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed respectfully to
+grandmamma. He was the butler. He handed us over, so to say, to a
+nice-looking oldish woman, who was the head housemaid, and she took us
+at once upstairs to our rooms, the butler asking grandmamma to leave the
+luggage and the cab-paying to him&mdash;he would see that it was all right.
+She thanked him nicely, but rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> 'grandly'&mdash;not at all as if she
+was not accustomed to lots of servants and attention, which I was
+pleased at. It was a good thing for me that I had been so much with the
+Nestors; it prevented my seeming awkward or shy with so many servants
+about, which otherwise I might have been. Grandmamma of course <i>had</i>
+been used to being rich, but <i>I</i> never had.</p>
+
+<p>There came a disappointment the very first thing. Hales, the housemaid,
+threw open the door of a large, rather gloomy-looking bedroom, where a
+fire was burning and candles already lighted.</p>
+
+<p>'Your room, ma'am,' she said. 'Missie's&mdash;&mdash;' she hesitated. 'Miss
+Wingfield's,' said granny. 'Miss Wingfield's,' Hales repeated, 'is on
+the next floor but one.'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma looked uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>'Is it far from this room?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no, ma'am, just the staircase&mdash;it is over this. Mr. Vandeleur
+thought it was the best. It was Mrs. Vandeleur's when she was a little
+girl.' For the house in Chichester Square had been left to Cousin Agnes
+by her parents a few years ago; that was why it seemed rather
+old-fashioned. 'All the rooms on this floor besides this one,' Hales
+went on, 'are Mrs. Vandeleur's; and master's study, and the next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> floor
+are spare rooms, except to the back, and we thought it was fresher and
+pleasanter to the front for the young lady.'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma looked pleased at the kind way Hales spoke, but still she
+hesitated. I gave her a little tug.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't mind,' I said, for I was not at all a frightened child about
+sleeping alone and things like that. She smiled back at me. 'That's
+right,' she said, and I felt rewarded.</p>
+
+<p>My room was a nice one when I got there, but it did seem a tremendous
+way up, and it looked rather bare and felt rather chilly, even though
+there was a fire burning, which, however, had not been lighted very
+long. The housemaid went towards it and gave it a poke, murmuring
+something about 'Belinda being so careless.' Belinda, as I soon found
+out, was the second housemaid, and it was she who was to wait upon me
+and take care of my room.</p>
+
+<p>'You must ring for anything you want, miss,' said Hales, 'and if Belinda
+isn't attentive perhaps you will mention it.'</p>
+
+<p>And so saying she left me. I felt rather lonely, even though grandmamma
+was in the same house. There was a deserted feeling about the room as if
+it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> had not been used for a very long time, and my two boxes looked very
+small indeed. I felt no interest in unpacking my things, even though I
+had brought my books and some of my little ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>'They will look nothing in this great bare place,' I thought. 'I won't
+take them out, and then I shall have the feeling that we are not going
+to be here for long.'</p>
+
+<p>A queer sort of home-sickness for Windy Gap and for my life there came
+over me.</p>
+
+<p>'I do wish we had not come here; I'm sure I'm going to hate it. I think
+grandmamma might have come up with me to see my room,' and I stood there
+beside the flickering little fire, feeling far from happy or even
+amiable.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, the sound of a gong startled me. I had not even begun to take
+off my hat and jacket. I did so now in a hurry, and then turned to wash
+my hands and face, somewhat cheered to find a can of nice hot water
+standing ready. Then I smoothed my hair with a little pocket-comb I had,
+as I dared not wait to take out any of my things. But I am afraid I did
+not look as neat as usual or as I might have done if I hadn't wasted my
+time.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried downstairs; a door stood open, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> looking in, I was sure
+that it was the dining-room, and grandmamma there waiting for me. A
+table, which to me seemed very large, though it was really an
+ordinary-sized round one, was nicely arranged for tea. How glad I was
+that it was not dinner!</p>
+
+<p>'Come, dear,' said grandmamma, 'you must be very hungry.'</p>
+
+<p>'I couldn't change my dress, grandmamma,' I said, not quite sure if she
+would not be displeased with me.</p>
+
+<p>'Of course not,' she replied, cheerfully, 'I never expected it this
+first evening.'</p>
+
+<p>My spirits rose when I had had a nice cup of tea and something to
+eat&mdash;it is funny how our bodies rule our minds sometimes&mdash;and I began to
+talk more in my usual way, especially as, to my great relief, the
+servants had by this time left the room.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall we have tea like this every evening, grandmamma?' I asked; 'it is
+so much nicer than dinner.'</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' she said, 'while we are alone I think it will be the best plan,
+as you are too young for late dinner. When your cousins come home, of
+course things will be regularly arranged.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'That means,' I thought to myself, 'that I shall have all my meals
+alone, I suppose,' and again an unreasonably cross feeling came over me.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma noticed it, I think, but she said nothing, and very soon
+after we had finished tea she proposed that I should go to bed. She took
+me upstairs herself to my room, and waited till I was in bed; then she
+kissed me as lovingly and tenderly as ever, but, all the same, no sooner
+had she left me alone than I buried my face in the pillow and burst into
+tears. I had an under feeling that grandmamma was not quite pleased with
+me. I know now that she was only anxious, and perhaps a little
+disappointed, at my not seeming brighter. For, after all, everything she
+had done and was doing was for my sake, and I should have trusted her
+and known this by instinct, instead of allowing myself from the very
+first beginning of our coming to London to think I was a sort of martyr.</p>
+
+<p>'I can see how it's going to be,' I thought, 'as soon as ever Mr. and
+Mrs. Vandeleur come back I shall be nowhere at all and nobody at all in
+this horrid, gloomy London. Cousin Agnes will be grandmamma's first
+thought, and I shall be expected to spend most of my life up in my room
+by myself. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> is too bad, it isn't my fault that I am an orphan with no
+other home of my own. I would rather have stayed at Windy Gap, however
+poor we were, than feel as I know I am going to do.'</p>
+
+<p>But in the middle of all these miserable ideas I fell asleep, and slept
+very soundly&mdash;I don't think I dreamt at all&mdash;till the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>When I opened my eyes I thought it was still the night. There seemed no
+light, but by degrees, as I got accustomed to the darkness, I made out
+the shapes of the two windows. Then a clock outside struck seven, and
+gradually everything came back to me&mdash;the journey and our arrival and
+the unhappy thoughts amidst which I had fallen asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, even though as yet there was nothing to cheer me&mdash;for what can
+be gloomier than to watch the cold dawn of a winter's morning creeping
+over the gray sky of London?&mdash;somehow, things seemed less dismal
+already. The fact was I had had a very good night, and was feeling
+rested and refreshed, so much so that I soon began to fidget and to wish
+that some one would come with my hot water and say it was time to get
+up.</p>
+
+<p>This did not happen till half-past seven, when a knock at the door was
+followed by the appearance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> Belinda&mdash;at least I guessed it was
+Belinda, for I had not seen her before. She was a pleasant enough
+looking girl, but with rather a pert manner, and she spoke to me as if I
+were about six.</p>
+
+<p>'You'd better get up at once, miss, as breakfast's to be so early, and
+I'm to help you to dress if you need me.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, thank you,' I said with great dignity, 'I don't want any help. But
+where's my bath?'</p>
+
+<p>'I've had no orders about a bath,' she replied, 'but, to be sure, you
+can't go to the bathroom, as it's next master's dressing-room. You'll
+have to speak to Hales about it,' and she went away murmuring something
+indistinctly as to new ways and new rules.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes, however, she came back again, lumbering a bath after
+her and looking rather cross.</p>
+
+<p>'How different she is from Kezia,' I thought to myself. 'I would not
+have minded anything as much if she had come with us.'</p>
+
+<p>Still, I was sensible enough to know that it was no use making the worst
+of things, and I think I must have looked rather pleasanter and more
+cheerful than the evening before, when I tapped at grandmamma's door and
+went downstairs to breakfast holding her hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>She</i> had much more to think of and trouble about than I, and if I had
+not been so selfish I was quite sensible enough to have understood this.
+A great many things required rearranging and overlooking in the
+household, for, though the servants were good on the whole, it was long
+since they had had a mistress's eye over them, and without that, even
+the best servants are pretty sure to get into careless ways. And
+grandmamma was so very conscientious that she felt even more anxious
+about all these things for Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur's sake, than if it had
+been her own house and her own servants. Besides, though she was so
+clever and experienced, it was a good many years since she had had a
+large house to look after, as our little home at Middlemoor had been so
+very, very simple. Yes, I see now it must have been very hard upon her,
+for, instead of doing all I could to help her, I was quite taken up with
+my own part of it, and ready to grumble at and exaggerate every little
+difficulty or disagreeableness.</p>
+
+<p>I think grandmamma tried for some time not to see the sort of humour I
+was in, and how selfish and spoilt I had become. She excused me to
+herself by saying I was tired, and that such a complete change<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> of life
+was trying for a child, and by kind little reasons of that sort.</p>
+
+<p>'I shall be rather busy this morning,' she said to me that first day at
+breakfast, 'but if it keeps fine we can go out a little in the
+afternoon, and let you have your first peep of London. Let me see, what
+can you do with yourself this morning? You have your things to unpack
+still, and I daresay you would like to put out your ornaments and books
+in your own room.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't mean to put them out,' I said, 'it's not worth while. I will
+keep my books in one of the boxes and just get one out when I want it,
+and as for the ornaments, they wouldn't look anything in that big, bare
+room.'</p>
+
+<p>But as I said this I caught sight of grandmamma's face, and I felt
+ashamed of being so grumbling when I was really feeling more cheerful
+and interested in everything than the night before. So I changed my tone
+a little.</p>
+
+<p>'I will unpack all my things,' I said, 'and see how they look, anyway.
+Perhaps I'd better hang up my new frocks, I wouldn't like them to get
+crushed.'</p>
+
+<p>'I should think Belinda would have unpacked your clothes by this time,'
+said grandmamma, 'but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> no doubt you'll find something to do. But, by the
+bye, they may not have lighted a fire in your room, don't stay upstairs
+long if you feel chilly, but bring your work down to the library.' I
+went upstairs. In the full daylight, though it was a dull morning, I
+liked my room even less than the night before. There was nothing in it
+bright or fresh, though I daresay it had looked much nicer, years
+before, when Cousin Agnes was a little girl, for the cretonne curtains
+must once have been very pretty, with bunches of pink roses, which now,
+however, were faded, as well as the carpet on the floor, and the paper
+on the walls, to an over-all dinginess such as you never see in a
+country room even when everything in it is old.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down on a chair and looked about me disconsolately. Belinda had
+unpacked my clothes and arranged them after her fashion. My other
+possessions were still untouched, but I did not feel as if I cared to do
+anything with them.</p>
+
+<p>'I shall never be at home here,' I said to myself, 'but I suppose I must
+just try to bear it for the time, for grandmamma's sake.'</p>
+
+<p>Silly child that I was, as if grandmamma ever thought of herself, or her
+own likes and dislikes, before what she considered right and good for
+me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> But the idea of being something of a martyr pleased me. I got out
+my work, not my fancy-work&mdash;I was in a mood for doing disagreeable
+things&mdash;but some plain sewing that I had not touched for some time, and
+took it downstairs to the library. I heard voices as I opened the door,
+grandmamma was sitting at the writing-table speaking to the cook, who
+stood beside her, a rather fat, pleasant-looking woman, who made a
+little curtsey when she saw me. But grandmamma looked up, for her,
+rather sharply&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Why, have you finished upstairs already, Helena?' she said. 'You had
+better go into the dining-room for a few minutes, I am busy just now.'</p>
+
+<p>I went away immediately, but I was very much offended, it just seemed
+the beginning of what I was fancying to myself. The dining-room door was
+ajar, and I caught sight of the footman looking over some spoons and
+forks.</p>
+
+<p>'I won't go in there,' I said to myself, and upstairs I mounted again.</p>
+
+<p>On the first landing, where grandmamma's room was, there were several
+other doors. All was perfectly quiet&mdash;there seemed no servants about, so
+I thought I would amuse myself by a little exploring.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> The first room I
+peeped into was large&mdash;larger than grandmamma's, but all the furniture
+was covered up. The only thing that interested me was a picture in
+pastelles hanging up over the mantelpiece. It caught my attention at
+once, and I stood looking up at it for some moments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ARRIVAL</h3>
+
+<p>It was the portrait of a young girl,&mdash;a very sweet face with soft,
+half-timid looking eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;"><a name="I157" id="I157"></a>
+<img src="images/i157.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="It was the portrait of a young girl.&mdash;P. 139." title="" />
+<span class="caption">It was the portrait of a young girl.&mdash;P. 139.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>'I wonder who it is,' I thought to myself, 'I wonder if it is Mrs.
+Vandeleur. If it is, she must be nice. I almost think I should like her
+very much.'</p>
+
+<p>A door in this room led into a dressing-room, which next caught my
+attention. Here, too, the only thing that struck me was a portrait. This
+time, a photograph only, of a boy. Such a nice, open face! For a moment
+or two I thought it must be Cousin Cosmo, but looking more closely I saw
+written in one corner the name 'Paul' and the date 'July 1865.' I caught
+my breath, as I said to myself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'It must be papa! I wonder if granny knows&mdash;she has none of him as young
+as that, I am sure. Oh, dear, how I do wish he was alive!'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But it was with a softened feeling towards both of my unknown cousins
+that I stepped out on to the landing again.</p>
+
+<p>It did seem as if Mr. Vandeleur must have been very fond of my father
+for him to have kept this photograph all these years, hanging up where
+he must see it every time he came into his room.</p>
+
+<p>Unluckily, just as I was thinking this, Belinda made her appearance
+through a door leading on to the backstairs.</p>
+
+<p>'What are you doing here, miss?' she said. 'I don't think Hales would be
+best pleased to find you wandering about through these rooms.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know what you mean,' I said, frightened, yet indignant too. 'I
+was only looking at the pictures. In grandmamma's house at home I go
+into any room I like.'</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, but you see, miss, you are not at your own home now,' she said,
+'that makes all the difference,' and she passed on, closing the door I
+had left open, as if to say, 'you can't go in there again!'</p>
+
+<p>I made my way up to my own room, all the doleful feelings coming back.</p>
+
+<p>'Really,' I said, as I curled myself up at the foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> of the bed, 'there
+seems no place for me in the world, it's "move on&mdash;move on," like the
+poor boy in the play grandmamma once told me about.'</p>
+
+<p>And I sat there in the cold, nursing my bitter and discontented
+thoughts, as if I had nothing to be grateful or thankful for in life.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma did not come up to look for me, as in my secret heart I think
+I hoped she would. She was very, very busy, busier than I could have
+understood if she had told me about it, for though he did not at all
+mean to put too much upon her, Mr. Vandeleur had such faith in her good
+sense and judgment, that he had left everything to be settled by her
+when we came.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know if I fell asleep; I think I must have dozed a little, for
+the next thing I remember is rousing up, and feeling myself stiff and
+cramped, and not long after that the gong sounded again. I got down from
+my bed and looked at myself in the glass; my face seemed very pinched
+and miserable. I made my hair neat and washed my hands, for I would not
+have dared to go downstairs untidy to the dining-room. But I was not at
+all sorry when grandmamma looked at me anxiously, exclaiming&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My dear child, how white you are! Where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> have you been, and what have
+you been doing with yourself?'</p>
+
+<p>'I've been up in my own room,' I said, and just then grandmamma said
+nothing more, but when we were alone again she spoke to me seriously
+about the foolishness of risking making myself ill for no reason.</p>
+
+<p>'There <i>is</i> reason,' I said crossly, 'at least there's no reason why I
+shouldn't be ill; nobody cares how I am.'</p>
+
+<p>For all answer grandmamma drew me to her and kissed me.</p>
+
+<p>'My poor, silly, little Helena,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>I was touched and ashamed, but irritated also; grandmamma understood me
+better than I understood myself.</p>
+
+<p>'We are going out now,' she said, 'put on your things as quickly as you
+can. I have several shops to go to, and the afternoons close in very
+early in London just now.'</p>
+
+<p>That walk with grandmamma&mdash;at least it was only partly a walk, for she
+took a hansom to the first shop she had to go to,&mdash;and I had never been
+in a hansom before, so you can fancy how I enjoyed it&mdash;yes, that first
+afternoon in London stands out very happily. Once I had grandmamma quite
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> myself everything seemed to come right, and I could almost have
+skipped along the street in my pleasure and excitement. The shops were
+already beginning to look gay in anticipation of Christmas, to
+me&mdash;country child that I was, they were bewilderingly magnificent.
+Grandmamma was careful not to let me get too tired, we drove home again
+in another hansom, carrying some of our purchases with us. These were
+mostly things for the house, and a few for ourselves, and shopping was
+so new to me, that I took the greatest interest even in ordering brushes
+for the housemaid, or choosing a new afternoon tea-service for Cousin
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, too, passed much better than the morning. Grandmamma spoke
+to me about how things were likely to be and what I myself should try to
+do.</p>
+
+<p>'I cannot fix anything about lessons for you,' she said, 'till after
+Cosmo and Agnes return, for I do not know how much time I shall have
+free for you. But you are well on for your age, and I don't think a few
+weeks without regular lessons will do you any harm, especially here in
+London, where there is so much new and interesting. But I think you had
+better make a plan for yourself&mdash;I will help you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> with it&mdash;for doing
+something every morning while I am busy.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I may be with you in the afternoons, mayn't I?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Of course, at least generally,' said grandmamma, 'whenever the weather
+is fine enough I will take you out. It would never do to shut you up
+when you have been so accustomed to the open air. Some days, perhaps, we
+may go out in the mornings. All I want you to understand now, is that
+plans cannot possibly be settled all at once. You must be patient and
+cheerful, and if there are things that you don't like just now, in a
+little while they will probably disappear.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt pleased at grandmamma talking to me more in her old consulting
+way, and for the time it seemed as if I could do as she wished without
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>And for some days and even weeks things went on pretty well. I used to
+get cross now and then when grandmamma could not be with me as much as I
+wanted, but so far, there was no <i>person</i> to come between her and me, it
+was only her having so much to do; and whenever we were together she was
+so sweet and understanding in every way, that it made up for the lonely
+hours I sometimes had to spend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But in myself I am afraid there was not really any improvement, it was
+only on the surface. There was still the selfishness underneath, the
+readiness to take offence and be jealous of anything that seemed to put
+me out of my place as first with grandmamma. All the unhappy feelings
+were there, smouldering, ready to burst out into fire the moment
+anything stirred them up.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas came and went. It was very unlike any of the Christmases I had
+ever known, and of course it could not but seem rather lonely.
+Grandmamma still had some old friends in London, but she had not tried
+to see them, as she had been so busy, and not knowing as yet when Cousin
+Agnes would be returning. It seemed a sort of waiting time altogether.
+Now and then grandmamma would allude cheerfully to Cousin Cosmo and his
+wife coming home, hoping that it would be soon, as every letter brought
+better accounts of Mrs. Vandeleur's health. I certainly did not share in
+these hopes, I would rather have gone on living for ever as we were if
+only I could have had grandmamma to myself.</p>
+
+<p>I think it was about the 8th of January that there came one morning a
+letter which made grandmamma look very grave, and when she had finished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+reading it she sat for a moment or two without speaking. Then she said,
+as if thinking aloud&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Dear me, this is very disappointing.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is anything the matter?' I asked. 'Can't you tell me what it is,
+grandmamma?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, dear,' she said, 'it is only what I have been looking forward
+to so much&mdash;but it has come in such a different way. Your cousins are
+returning almost immediately, but only, I am sorry to say, because poor
+Agnes is so ill that the London doctor says she must be near him. They
+are bringing her up in an invalid carriage the first mild day, so I must
+have everything ready for them. It will probably be many weeks before
+she can leave her room,' and poor grandmamma sighed.</p>
+
+<p>This news was far from welcome to me, but I am afraid what I cared for
+had only to do with myself. I didn't feel very sorry for poor Cousin
+Agnes. Partly, perhaps, because I was too young to understand how
+seriously ill she was, but chiefly, I am afraid, because I immediately
+began to think how much of grandmamma's time would be taken up by her,
+and how dull it would be for me in consequence. And when grandmamma
+turned to me and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I'm sure I shall find you a help and comfort, Helena,' it almost
+startled me.</p>
+
+<p>I murmured something about wishing there was anything I could do, and I
+did feel ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid there will not be much for you actually to do,' said
+grandmamma, 'and I don't think you need warning to be very quiet in a
+house with an invalid. You are never noisy,' and she smiled a little;
+'but you must try to be bright and not to mind if for a little while you
+have to be left a good deal to yourself. I must speak to Hales about
+going out with you sometimes, for you must have a walk every day.'</p>
+
+<p>And within a week of receiving this bad news there came one morning a
+telegram to say that Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur would be arriving that
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear, dear,' I thought to myself when I heard it. 'I wish I
+were&mdash;oh, anywhere except here!'</p>
+
+<p>I spent the hours till luncheon&mdash;which was of course my dinner&mdash;as
+usual, doing some lessons and needlework. Hitherto, grandmamma had
+corrected my lessons in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't believe she'll have time to look over my exercises now,' I
+thought to myself, 'but I suppose I must go on doing them all the
+same.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have forgotten to say that I did my lessons at a side table in the
+dining-room, where there was always a large fire burning. It did not
+seem worth while to have another room given up to me while grandmamma
+and I were alone in the house.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see grandmamma till luncheon, and then she told me that she
+was obliged to go out immediately to some distance, as Mrs. Vandeleur's
+invalid couch or table, I forget which, was not the kind ordered.</p>
+
+<p>'But mayn't I come with you?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma shook her head. No, she was in a great hurry, and the place
+she was going to was in the city, it would do me no good, and it was a
+damp, foggy day. I might go into the Square garden for a little if I
+would promise to come in at once if it rained.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing very inviting in this prospect. I liked the Square
+gardens well enough to walk up and down in with grandmamma, but alone
+was a very different matter. Still, it was better than staying in all
+the afternoon. And I spent an hour or more in pacing along the paths
+enjoying my self-pity to the full.</p>
+
+<p>There were a few other children playing together; how I envied them!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'If I had even a little dog,' I said to myself, 'it would be something.
+But of course there's no chance of that&mdash;he would disturb Cousin Agnes.'</p>
+
+<p>I went back to the house an hour or so before the expected arrival.
+Grandmamma had already returned. She was in her own room, I peeped in on
+my way upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>'What do you want me to do, grandmamma?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at me.</p>
+
+<p>'Change your frock, dear, and come down to the library with your work.
+Of course Cosmo will want to see you, once Cousin Agnes is settled in
+her room. Dear me, I do hope she will have stood the journey pretty
+well!'</p>
+
+<p>I came downstairs again with mixed feelings. I should rather have
+enjoyed making a martyr of myself by staying up in my own room. But, on
+the other hand, I had a good deal of curiosity on the subject of my
+unknown cousins.</p>
+
+<p>'I wonder if Cousin Agnes will be able to walk,' I thought to myself,
+'or if they will carry her in. I should like to see what an invalid
+carriage is like!'</p>
+
+<p>I think I pictured to myself a sort of palanquin, and eager to be on the
+spot at the moment of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> arrival I changed my frock very quickly and
+hastened downstairs with my knitting in my hand&mdash;a model of propriety.</p>
+
+<p>'Do I look nice, grandmamma?' I asked. 'It is the first time I have had
+this frock on, you know.'</p>
+
+<p>For besides the new clothes grandmamma had ordered from Windy Gap, she
+had got me some very nice ones since we came to London. And this new one
+I thought the prettiest of all. It was brown velveteen with a falling
+collar of lace, with which I was especially pleased, for though my
+clothes had been always very neatly made, they had been very plain, the
+last two or three years more especially. So I stood there pleasantly
+expecting grandmamma's approval. But she scarcely glanced at me, I doubt
+if she heard what I said, for she was busy writing a note about
+something or other which had been forgotten, and almost as I spoke the
+footman came into the room to take it.</p>
+
+<p>'What were you saying, my dear?' she said quickly. 'Oh yes, very
+nice&mdash;&mdash; Be sure, William, that this is sent at once.'</p>
+
+<p>I crossed the room and sat down in the farthest corner, my heart
+swelling. It was not <i>all</i> spoilt temper, I was really terribly afraid
+that grandmamma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> was beginning to care less for me. But before there had
+been time for her to notice my disappointment, there came the sound of
+wheels stopping at the door, and then the bell rang loudly. Grandmamma
+started up. If I had been less taken up with myself, I could easily have
+entered into her feelings. It was the first time for more than twelve
+years that she had seen her nephew, and think of all that had happened
+to her since then! But none of these thoughts came into my mind just
+then, it was quite filled with myself and my own troubles, and but for
+my curiosity I think I would have hidden myself behind the
+window-curtains.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma went out into the hall and I followed her. The door was
+already opened, as the servants had been on the look-out.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I saw was a tall, slight figure coming very slowly up
+the steps on the arm of a dark, grave-looking man. Behind them came a
+maid laden with shawls and cushions. They came quietly into the hall,
+grandmamma moving forward a little to meet them, though without
+speaking.</p>
+
+<p>A smile came over Cousin Agnes's pale face as she caught sight of her,
+but Mr. Vandeleur looked up almost sharply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Wait till we get her into the library,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently coming up those few steps had almost been too much for his
+wife, for I saw her face grow still paler. I was watching with such
+interest that I quite forgot that where I stood I was partially blocking
+up the doorway. Without noticing who I was, so completely absorbed was
+he with Cousin Agnes, Mr. Vandeleur stretched out his hand and half put
+me aside.</p>
+
+<p>'Take care,' he said quickly, and before there was time for
+more&mdash;'Helena, do get out of the way,' said grandmamma.</p>
+
+<p>That was the last straw for me. I did get out of the way. I turned and
+rushed across the hall, and upstairs to my own room without a word.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>A CATASTROPHE</h3>
+
+<p>No one came up to look for me; I don't know that I expected it, but
+still I was disappointed and made a fresh grievance of this neglect, as
+I considered it. The truth was, nobody was thinking of me at all, for
+Cousin Agnes had fainted when she got into the library and everybody was
+engrossed in attending to her.</p>
+
+<p>Afternoon tea time came and passed, and still I was alone. It was quite
+dark when at last Belinda came up to draw down the blinds, and was
+startled by finding me in my usual place when much upset&mdash;curled up at
+the foot of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Whatever are you doing here, miss?' she said, sharply. 'There's your
+tea been waiting in the dining-room for ever so long.'</p>
+
+<p>The fact was, she had been told to call me but had forgotten it.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't want any,' I said, shortly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Nonsense, miss,' said the girl, 'you can't go without eating. And when
+there's any one ill in the house you must just make the best of things.'</p>
+
+<p>'Mrs. Vandeleur didn't seem so very ill,' I said, 'she was able to
+walk.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, but she's been worse since then&mdash;they had to fetch the doctor, and
+now she's in bed and better, and your grandmamma's sitting beside her.'</p>
+
+<p>I did feel sorry for Cousin Agnes when I heard this, though the sore
+feeling still remained that I wasn't wanted, and was of no use to any
+one. I was almost glad to escape seeing grandmamma, so I went downstairs
+quietly to the dining-room and had my tea, for I was very hungry. Just
+as I had finished, and was crossing the hall to go upstairs again, a
+tall figure came out of the library. I knew in a moment who it was, but
+Cousin Cosmo stared at me as if he couldn't imagine what child it could
+be, apparently at home in his house.</p>
+
+<p>'Who&mdash;what?' he began, but then corrected himself. 'Oh, to be sure,' he
+added, holding out his hand, 'you're Helena of course. I wasn't sure if
+you were at school or not.'</p>
+
+<p>'At school,' I repeated, 'grandmamma would never send me to school.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He smiled a little, or meant to do so, but I thought him very grim and
+forbidding.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't wonder at those boys not liking him for their guardian,' I said
+to myself as I looked up at him.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, well,' he replied, 'so long as you remember to be a very quiet
+little girl, especially when you pass the first landing, I daresay it
+will be all right.'</p>
+
+<p>I didn't condescend to answer, but walked off with my most dignified
+air, which no doubt was lost upon my cousin, who, I fancy, had almost
+forgotten my existence before he had closed the hall door behind him,
+for he was just going out.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see grandmamma that evening, and I did not know that she saw
+me, for when she at last was free to come up to my room, I was in bed
+and fast asleep, and she was careful not to wake me. She told me this
+the next morning, and also that Belinda had said I had had my tea and
+supper comfortably. But&mdash;partly from pride, and partly from better
+motives&mdash;I did not tell her that I had cried myself to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>I need not go into the daily history of the next few weeks, indeed I
+don't wish to do so. They were the most miserable time of my whole life.
+Now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> that all is happy I don't want to dwell upon them. Dear grandmamma
+says, whenever we do speak about that time, that she really does not
+think it was <i>all</i> my fault, and that comforts me. It was certainly not
+her fault, nor anybody's in one way, except of course mine. Things
+happened in a trying way, as they must do in life sometimes, and I don't
+think it was wrong of me to feel unhappy. We <i>have</i> to be unhappy
+sometimes; but it was wrong of me not to bear it patiently, and to let
+myself grow bitter, and worst of all, to do what I did&mdash;what I am now
+going to tell about.</p>
+
+<p>Those dreary weeks went on till it was nearly Easter, which came very
+early that year. After my cousins' return home the weather got very bad
+and added to the gloom of everything.</p>
+
+<p>It was not so very cold, but it was <i>so</i> dull! Fog more or less, every
+day, and if not fog, sleety rain, which generally began by trying to be
+snow, and for my part I wished it had been&mdash;it would have made the
+streets look clean for a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>There were lots of days on which I couldn't go out at all, and when I
+did go out, with Belinda as my companion, I did not enjoy it. She was a
+silly, selfish girl, though rather good-natured once she felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> I was in
+some way dependent on her, but her ideas of amusing talk were not the
+same as mine. The only shop-windows she cared to look at were milliners'
+and drapers', and she couldn't understand my longing to read the names
+of the tempting volumes in the booksellers, and feeling so pleased if I
+saw any of my old friends among them.</p>
+
+<p>Indoors, my life was really principally spent in my own room, where,
+however, I always had a good big fire, which was a comfort. There were
+many days on which I scarcely saw grandmamma, a few on which I actually
+did not see her at all. For all this time Cousin Agnes was really
+terribly ill&mdash;much worse than I knew&mdash;and Mr. Vandeleur was nearly out
+of his mind with grief and anxiety, and self-reproach for having brought
+her up to London, which he had done rather against the advice of her
+doctor in the country, who, he now thought, understood her better than
+the great doctor in London. And grandmamma, I believe, had nearly as
+much to do in comforting him and keeping him from growing quite morbid,
+as in taking care of Cousin Agnes. All the improvement in her health
+which they had been so pleased at during the first part of the winter
+had gone, and I now know that for a great part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> those weeks there was
+very little hope of her living. I saw Cousin Cosmo sometimes at
+breakfast but never at any other hour of the day, unless I happened to
+pass him on the staircase, which I avoided as much as possible, you may
+be sure, for if he did speak to me it was as if I were about three years
+old, and he was sure to say something about being very quiet. I don't
+think I could have been expected to like him, but I'm afraid I almost
+hated him then. It would have been better&mdash;that is one of the things
+grandmamma now says&mdash;to have told me more of their great anxiety, and it
+certainly would have been better to send me to school, to some
+day-school even, for the time.</p>
+
+<p>As it was, day by day I grew more miserable, for you see I had nothing
+to look forward to, no actual reason for hoping that my life would ever
+be happier again, for, not knowing but that poor Cousin Agnes might die
+any day, grandmamma did not like to speak of the future at all.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw her&mdash;Cousin Agnes I mean&mdash;never except once, but I have not
+come to that yet. At last, things came to a crisis with me. One day, one
+morning, Belinda told me that I must not stay in my room as it was to be
+what she called 'turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> out,' by which she meant that it was to undergo
+an extra thorough cleaning. She had forgotten to tell me this the night
+before, so that when I came up from breakfast, which I had had alone,
+intending to settle down comfortably with my books before the fire, I
+found there was no fire and everything in confusion.</p>
+
+<p>'What am I to do?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'You must go down to the dining-room and do your lessons there,' said
+Belinda. 'There will be no one to disturb you, once the breakfast things
+are taken away.'</p>
+
+<p>'Has Mr. Vandeleur had his breakfast?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know,' said Belinda, shortly, for she had been told not to tell
+me that Cousin Agnes had been so ill in the night that the great doctor
+had been sent for, and they were now having a consultation about her in
+the library.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll help you to get your things together,' she went on, 'and you must
+go downstairs as quietly as possible.'</p>
+
+<p>We collected my books. It made me melancholy to see them, there were
+such piles of exercises grandmamma had never had time to look over!
+Belinda heaped them all on to the top of my atlas, the glass ink-bottle
+among them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Are they quite steady?' I said. 'Hadn't I better come up again and only
+take half now?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear, no,' said Belinda,'they are right enough if you walk
+carefully,' for in her heart she knew that she should have helped me to
+carry them down, herself.</p>
+
+<p>But I had got used to her careless ways, and I didn't seem to mind
+anything much now, so I set off with my burden. It was all right till I
+got to the first floor&mdash;the floor where grandmamma's and Cousin Agnes's
+rooms were. Then, as ill luck would have it&mdash;just from taking extra
+care, I suppose&mdash;somehow or other I lost my footing and down I went, a
+regular good bumping roll from top to bottom of one flight of stairs,
+books, and slate, and glass ink-bottle all clattering after me! I'm
+quite sure that in all my life before or since I never made such a
+noise!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 317px;"><a name="I180" id="I180"></a>
+<img src="images/i180.jpg" width="317" height="500" alt="Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
+first.&mdash;P. 160." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
+first.&mdash;P. 160.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I hurt myself a good deal, though not seriously; but before I had time
+to do more than sit up and feel my arms and legs to be sure that none of
+them were broken, the library door below was thrown open, and up rushed
+two or three&mdash;at first sight I thought them still more&mdash;men! Cousin
+Cosmo the first.</p>
+
+<p>'In heaven's name,' he exclaimed, though even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> then he did not speak
+loudly, 'what is the matter? This is really inexcusable!'</p>
+
+<p>He meant, I think, that there should have been some one looking after
+me! But I took the harsh word to myself.</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;I've fallen downstairs,' I said, which of course was easy to be
+seen. There was a dark pool on the step beside me, and in spite of his
+irritation Cousin Cosmo was alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you cut yourself?' he said, 'are you bleeding?' and he took out
+his handkerchief, hardly knowing why, but as he stooped towards me it
+touched the stain.</p>
+
+<p>'Ink!' he said, in a tone of disgust. 'Really, even a child might have
+more sense!'</p>
+
+<p>Then the older of the two men who were with him came forward. He had a
+very grave but kind face.</p>
+
+<p>'It is very unfortunate,' he said,'I hope the noise has not startled
+Mrs. Vandeleur. You must really,' he went on, turning to Cousin Cosmo,
+but then stopping&mdash;'I must have a word or two with you about this before
+I go. In the meantime we had better pick up this little person.'</p>
+
+<p>I got up of myself, though something in the doctor's face prevented my
+feeling vexed at his words,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> as I might otherwise have been. But just as
+I was stooping to pick up my books and to hide the giddy, shaky feeling
+which came over me, a voice from the landing above made me start. It was
+grandmamma herself; she hastened down the flight of stairs, looking
+extremely upset.</p>
+
+<p>'Helena!' she exclaimed, and I think her face cleared a little when she
+saw me standing there,'you have not hurt yourself then? But what in the
+world were you doing to make such a terrific clatter? I never knew her
+do such a thing before,' she went on.</p>
+
+<p>'Did Agnes hear it?' said Cousin Cosmo, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid it did startle her,' grandmamma replied, 'but fortunately
+she thought it was something in the basement. I must go back to her at
+once,' and without another word to me she turned upstairs again.</p>
+
+<p>I can't tell what I felt like; even now I hate to remember it. My own
+grandmamma to speak to me in that voice and not to care whether I was
+hurt or not! I think some servant was called to wipe up the ink, and I
+made my way, stiff and bruised and giddy, to the dining-room&mdash;I had not
+even the refuge of my own room to cry in at peace&mdash;while Cousin Cosmo
+and the doctors went back to the library.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> And not long after, I heard
+the front door close and a carriage drive away.</p>
+
+<p>I thought my cup was full, but it was not, as you shall hear. I didn't
+try to do any lessons. My head was aching and I didn't feel as if it
+mattered what I did or didn't do.</p>
+
+<p>'If only my room was ready,' I thought, half stupidly, 'I wouldn't mind
+so much.'</p>
+
+<p>I think I must have cried a good deal almost without knowing it, for
+after a while, when the footman came into the room, I started up with a
+conscious feeling of not wanting to be seen, and turned towards the
+window, where I stood pretending to look out. Not that there was
+anything to be seen; the fog was getting so thick that I could scarcely
+distinguish the railings a few feet off.</p>
+
+<p>The footman left the room again, but I felt sure he was coming back, so
+I crept behind the shelter of the heavy curtains and curled myself up on
+the floor, drawing them round me. And then, how soon I can't tell, I
+fell asleep. It has always been my way to do so when I've been very
+unhappy, and the unhappier I am the more heavily I sleep, though not in
+a nice refreshing way.</p>
+
+<p>I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> I could not have been
+asleep more than an hour, but to me it seemed like a whole night, and as
+I was beginning to collect my thoughts I heard voices talking in the
+room behind me. It must have been these voices which had awakened me.</p>
+
+<p>The first I heard was Mr. Vandeleur's.</p>
+
+<p>'I am very sorry about it,' he was saying, 'but I see no help for it. I
+would not for worlds distress you if I could avoid doing so, for all my
+old debts to you, my dear aunt, are doubled now by your devotion to
+Agnes. She will in great measure owe her life to you, I feel.'</p>
+
+<p>'You exaggerate it,' said grandmamma, 'though I do believe I am a
+comfort to her. But never mind about that just now&mdash;the present question
+is Helena.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' he replied, 'I can't tell you how strongly I feel that it would
+be for the child's good too, though I can quite understand it would be
+difficult for you to see it in that light.'</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said grandmamma, 'I have been thinking about it myself, for of
+course I have not been feeling satisfied about her. Perhaps in the past
+I have thought of her too exclusively, and it is very difficult for a
+child not to be spoilt by this. And now on the other hand&mdash;&mdash;'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'It is too much for you yourself,' interrupted my cousin, 'she should be
+quite off your mind. I have the greatest confidence in Dr. Pierce's
+judgment in such matters. He would recommend no school hastily. If you
+will come into the library I will give you the addresses of the two he
+mentioned. No doubt you will prefer to write for particulars yourself;
+though when it is settled I daresay I could manage to take her there.
+For even with these fresh hopes they have given us, now this crisis is
+passed, I doubt your being able to leave Agnes for more than an hour or
+two at a time.'</p>
+
+<p>'I should not think of doing so,' said grandmamma, decidedly. 'Yes&mdash;if
+you will give me the addresses I will write.'</p>
+
+<p>To me her voice sounded cold and hard; <i>now</i> I know of course that it
+was only the force she was putting upon herself to crush down her own
+feelings about parting with me.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till they had left the room that I began to understand what a
+dishonourable thing I had been doing in listening to this conversation,
+and for a moment there came over me the impulse to rush after them and
+tell what I had heard. But only for a moment; the dull heavy feeling,
+which had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> hanging over me for so long of not being cared for, of
+having no place of my own and being in everybody's way, seemed suddenly
+to have increased to an actual certainty. Hitherto, it now seemed to me,
+I had only been playing with the idea, and now as a sort of punishment
+had come upon me the reality of the cruel truth&mdash;grandmamma did <i>not</i>
+care for me any longer. She had got back the nephew who had been like a
+son to her, and he and his wife had stolen away from me all her love.
+Then came the mortification of remembering that I was living in Cousin
+Cosmo's house&mdash;a most unwelcome guest.</p>
+
+<p>'He never has liked me,' I thought to myself; 'even at the very
+beginning, grandmamma never gave me any kind messages from him. And
+those poor boys Gerard told me of couldn't care for him&mdash;he must be
+horrid.'</p>
+
+<p>Then a new thought struck me. 'I <i>have</i> a home still,' I thought; 'Windy
+Gap is ours, I could live there with Kezia and trouble nobody and hardly
+cost anything. I won't stay here to be sent to school; I don't think I
+am bound to bear it.'</p>
+
+<p>I crept out of my corner.</p>
+
+<p>'Surely my room will be ready by now,' I thought, and walking very
+slowly still, for falling asleep in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> the cold had made me even stiffer,
+I made my way upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, my room was ready, and there was a good fire. There was a little
+comfort in that: I sat down on the floor in front of it and began to
+think out my plans.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>HARRY</h3>
+
+<p>In spite of all that was on my mind I slept soundly, waking the next
+morning a little after my usual hour. Very quickly, so much was it
+impressed on my brain, I suppose, I recollected the determination with
+which I had gone to bed the night before.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried to the window and drew up the blind, for I had made one
+condition with myself&mdash;I would not attempt to carry out my plan if the
+fog was still there! But it had gone. Whether I was glad or sorry I
+really can't say. I dressed quickly, thinking or planning all the time.
+When I got downstairs to the dining-room it was empty, but on the table
+were the traces of some one having breakfasted there.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the footman came in&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I was to tell you, miss,' he said, 'that Mrs. Wingfield won't be down
+to breakfast; it's to be taken upstairs to her.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'And Mr. Vandeleur has had his, I suppose?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, miss,' he replied, clearing the table of some of the plates and
+dishes.</p>
+
+<p>I went on with my breakfast, eating as much as I could, for being what
+is called an 'old-fashioned' child, I thought to myself it might be some
+time before I got a regular meal again. Then I went upstairs, where,
+thanks to Belinda's turn-out of the day before, my room was already in
+order and the fire lighted. I locked the door and set to work.</p>
+
+<p>About an hour later, having listened till everything seemed quiet about
+the house, I made my way cautiously and carefully downstairs, carrying
+my own travelling-bag stuffed as full as it would hold and a brown paper
+parcel. When I got to the first bedroom floor, where grandmamma's room
+was, a sudden strange feeling came over me. I felt as if I <i>must</i> see
+her, even if she didn't see me. Her door was ajar.</p>
+
+<p>'Very likely,' I thought, 'she will be writing in there.'</p>
+
+<p>For, lately, I knew she had been there almost entirely, when not
+actually in Cousin Agnes's room, so as to be near her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'I will peep in,' I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>I put down what I was carrying and crept round the door noiselessly. At
+first I thought there was no one in the room, then to my surprise I saw
+that the position of the bed had been changed. It now stood with its
+back to the window, but the light of a brightly burning fire fell
+clearly upon it. There was some one in bed! Could it be grandmamma? If
+so, she must be really ill, it was so unlike her ever to stay in bed. I
+stepped forward a little&mdash;no, the pale face with the pretty bright hair
+showing against the pillows was not grandmamma, it was some one much
+younger, and with a sort of awe I said to myself it must be Cousin
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>So it was, she had been moved into grandmamma's room a day or two before
+for a little change.</p>
+
+<p>It could not have been the sound I made, for I really made none, that
+roused her; it must just have been the <i>feeling</i> that some one had
+entered the room. For all at once she opened her eyes, such very sweet
+blue eyes they were, and looked at me, at first in a half-startled way,
+but then with a little smile.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought I was dreaming,' she whispered. 'I have had such a nice
+sleep. Is that you, little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> Helena? I'm so glad to see you; I wanted you
+to come before, often.'</p>
+
+<p>I stood there trembling.</p>
+
+<p>What would grandmamma or Mr. Vandeleur think if they came in and found
+me there? But yet Cousin Agnes was so very sweet, her voice so gentle
+and almost loving, that I felt I could not run out of the room without
+answering her.</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you,' I said, 'I do hope you are better.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am going to be better very soon, I feel almost sure,' she said, but
+her voice was already growing weaker. 'Are you going out, dear?' she
+went on. 'Good-bye, I hope you will have a nice walk. Come again to see
+me soon.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you,' I whispered again, something in her voice almost making the
+tears come into my eyes, and I crept off as quietly as possible, with a
+curious feeling that if I delayed I should not go at all.</p>
+
+<p>By this time you will have guessed what my plan was. I think I will not
+go into all the particulars of how I made my way to Paddington in a
+hansom, which I picked up just outside the square, and how I managed to
+take my ticket, a third class one this time, for though I had brought
+all my money&mdash;a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> shillings of my own and a sovereign which Cousin
+Cosmo had sent me for a Christmas box&mdash;I saw that care would be needed
+to make it take me to my journey's end. Nor, how at last, late in the
+afternoon, I found myself on the platform at Middlemoor Station.</p>
+
+<p>I was very tired, now that the first excitement had gone off.</p>
+
+<p>'How glad I shall be to get to Windy Gap,' I thought, 'and to be with
+Kezia.'</p>
+
+<p>I opened my purse and looked at my money. There were three shillings and
+some coppers, not enough for a fly, which I knew cost five shillings.</p>
+
+<p>'I can't walk all the way,' I said to myself. 'It's getting so late
+too,' for I had had to wait more than an hour at Paddington for a train.</p>
+
+<p>Then a bright idea struck me. There was an omnibus that went rather more
+than half-way, if only I could get it I should be able to manage. I went
+out of the station and there, to my delight, it stood; by good luck I
+had come by a train which it always met. There were two other passengers
+in it already, but of course there was plenty of room for me and my bag
+and my parcel, so I settled myself in a corner, not sorry to see that my
+companions were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> perfect strangers to me. It was now about seven in
+the evening, the sky was fast darkening. Off we jogged, going at a
+pretty good pace at first, but soon falling back to a very slow one as
+the road began to mount. I fancy I dozed a little, for the next thing I
+remember was the stopping of the omnibus at the little roadside inn,
+which was the end of its journey.</p>
+
+<p>I got out and paid my fare, and then set off on what was really the
+worst part of the whole, for I was now very tired and my luggage, small
+as it was, seemed to weigh like lead. I might have looked out for a boy
+to carry it for me, but that idea didn't enter my head, and I was very
+anxious not to be noticed by any one who might have known me.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 318px;"><a name="I195" id="I195"></a>
+<img src="images/i195.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="It was all uphill too.&mdash;P. 173." title="" />
+<span class="caption">It was all uphill too.&mdash;P. 173.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I seemed to have no feeling now except the longing to be 'at home' and
+with Kezia. I almost forgot why I had come and all about my unhappiness
+in London; but, oh dear! how that mile stretched itself out! It was all
+uphill too; every now and then I was forced to stop for a minute and to
+put down my packages on the ground so as to rest my aching arms, so my
+progress was very slow. It was quite dark when at last I found myself
+stumbling up the bit of steep path which lay between the end of the road
+where Sharley's pony-cart used to wait and our own little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> garden-gate.
+If I hadn't known my way so well I could scarcely have found it, but at
+last my goal was reached. I stood at the door for a moment or two
+without knocking, to recover my breath, and indeed my wits, a little. It
+all seemed so strange, I felt as if I were dreaming. But soon the fresh
+sweet air, which was almost like native air to me, made me feel more
+like myself&mdash;made me realise that here I was again at dear old Windy
+Gap. More than that, I would not let my mind dwell upon, except to think
+over what should be my first words to Kezia.</p>
+
+<p>I knocked at last, and then for the first time I noticed that there was
+a light in the drawing-room shining through the blinds.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear me,' I thought, 'how strange,' and then a terror came over
+me&mdash;supposing the house was let to strangers! I had quite forgotten that
+this was possible.</p>
+
+<p>But before I had time to think of what I could in that case do, the door
+was opened.</p>
+
+<p>'Kezia,' I gasped, but looking up, my new fears took shape.</p>
+
+<p>It was not Kezia who stood there, it was a boy; a boy about two or three
+years older than I, not as tall as Gerard Nestor, though strong and
+sturdy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> looking, and with&mdash;even at that moment I thought so to
+myself&mdash;the very nicest face I had ever seen. He was sunburnt and ruddy,
+with short dark hair and bright kind-looking eyes, which when he smiled
+seemed to smile too. I daresay I did not see all that just then, but it
+is difficult now to separate my earliest remembrance of him from what I
+noticed afterwards, and there never was, there never has been, anything
+to contradict or confuse the first feeling, or instinct, that he was as
+good and true as he looked, my dear old Harry!</p>
+
+<p>Just now, of course, his face had a very surprised expression.</p>
+
+<p>'Kezia?' he repeated. 'I am sorry she is not in just now.'</p>
+
+<p>It was an immense relief to gather from his words that she was not away.</p>
+
+<p>'Will she be in soon?' I said, eagerly; 'I didn't know there was any one
+else in the house. May I&mdash;do you mind&mdash;if I come in and wait till Kezia
+returns?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly,' said the boy, and as he spoke he stooped to pick up the bag
+and parcel which his quick eyes had caught sight of. 'My brother and I
+are staying here,' he said, as he crossed the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> hall to the
+drawing-room door. 'We are alone here except for Kezia; we came here a
+fortnight ago from school, it was broken up because of illness.'</p>
+
+<p>I think he went on speaking out of a sort of friendly wish to set me at
+my ease, and I listened half stupidly, I don't think I quite took in
+what he said. A younger boy was sitting in my own old corner, by the
+window, and a little table with a lamp on it was drawn up beside him.</p>
+
+<p>'Lindsay,' said my guide, and the younger boy, who was evidently very
+well drilled by his brother, started up at once. 'This&mdash;this young
+lady,' for by this time he had found out I was a lady in spite of my
+brown paper parcel, 'has come to see Kezia. Put some coal on the fire,
+it's getting very low.'</p>
+
+<p>Lindsay obeyed, eyeing me as he did so. He was smaller and slighter than
+his brother, with fair hair and a rather girlish face.</p>
+
+<p>'Won't you sit down?' said Harry, pushing a chair forward to me.</p>
+
+<p>I was dreadfully tired and very glad to sit down, and now my brain began
+to work a little more quickly. The name 'Lindsay' had started some
+recollection.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you&mdash;' I began, 'is your name Vandeleur; are you the boys at school
+with Gerard Nestor?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Harry, opening his eyes very wide, 'and&mdash;would you mind
+telling me who you are?' he added bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm Helena Wingfield,' I said. 'This is my home. I have come back
+alone, all the way from London, because&mdash;&mdash;' and I stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>'Because?' repeated Harry, looking at me with his kind, though searching
+eyes. Something in his manner made me feel that I must answer him. He
+was only a boy, not nearly as 'grown-up' in manners or appearance as
+Gerard Nestor; there was something even a little rough about him, but
+still he seemed at once to take the upper hand with me; I felt that I
+must respect him.</p>
+
+<p>'Because&mdash;' I faltered, feeling it very difficult to keep from
+crying&mdash;'because I was so miserable in London in your&mdash;in Cousin Cosmo's
+house. He is my cousin, you know,' I went on, 'though his name is
+different.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know,' said Harry, quietly, 'he's our cousin too, and our guardian.
+But you're better off than we are&mdash;you've got your grandmother. I know
+all about you, you see. But how on earth did she let you come away like
+this alone? Or is she&mdash;no, she can't be with you, surely?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'No,' I replied, 'I'm alone, I thought I told you so; and grandmamma
+doesn't know I've come away, of course she wouldn't have let me. Nobody
+does know.'</p>
+
+<p>Harry's face grew very grave indeed, and Lindsay raised himself from
+stooping over the fire, and stood staring at me as if I was something
+very extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>'Your grandmother doesn't know?' repeated Harry, 'nobody knows? How
+could you come away like that? Why, your grandmother will be nearly out
+of her mind about you!'</p>
+
+<p>'No, she won't,' I replied, 'she doesn't care for me now, it's all quite
+different from what it used to be. Nobody cares for me, they'll only be
+very glad to be rid of the trouble of me.'</p>
+
+<p>The tears had got up into my eyes by this time, and as I spoke they
+began slowly to drop on to my cheeks. Harry saw them, I knew, but I
+didn't feel as if I cared, though I think I wanted him to be sorry for
+me, his kind face looked as if he would be. So I was rather surprised
+when, instead of saying something sympathising and gentle, he answered
+rather abruptly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Helena, I don't mean to be rude, for of course<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> it's no business of
+mine, but I think you must know that you are talking nonsense. I don't
+mean about Mr. Vandeleur, or any one but your grandmother; but as for
+saying that she has left off caring for you, that's all&mdash;perfectly
+impossible. <i>I</i> know enough for that; you've been with her all your
+life, and she's been most awfully good to you&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I know she has,' I interrupted, 'that makes it all the worse to bear.'</p>
+
+<p>'We'll talk about that afterwards,' said Harry, 'it's your grandmother
+you should think of now&mdash;what do you mean to do?'</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him, not quite understanding.</p>
+
+<p>'I meant to stay here,' I said, 'with Kezia. If I can't&mdash;if you count it
+your house and won't let me stay, I must go somewhere else. But you
+can't stop my staying here till I've seen Kezia.'</p>
+
+<p>Harry gave an impatient exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>'Can't you understand,' he said, 'that I meant what are you going to do
+about letting your grandmother know where you are?'</p>
+
+<p>'I hadn't thought about it,' I said; 'perhaps they won't find out till
+to-morrow morning.'</p>
+
+<p>And then in my indignation I went on to tell him about the lonely life I
+had had lately, ending up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> with an account of my fall down the stairs
+and what I had overheard about being sent away to school.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor Helena,' said Lindsay.</p>
+
+<p>Harry, too, was sorry for me, I know, but just then he did not say much.</p>
+
+<p>'All the same,' he replied, after listening to me, 'it wouldn't be right
+to risk your grandmother's being frightened, any longer. I'll send a
+telegram at once.'</p>
+
+<p>The village post and telegraph office was only a quarter of a mile from
+our house. Harry turned to leave the room as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>'Lindsay, you'll look after Helena till I come back,' he said. 'I
+daresay Kezia won't be in for an hour or so.'</p>
+
+<p>I stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>'You mustn't send a telegram without telling me what you are going to
+say,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>'I shall just put&mdash;"Helena is here, safe and well,"' he replied, and to
+this I could not make any reasonable objection.</p>
+
+<p>'I may be safe, but I don't think I am well,' I said grumblingly when he
+had gone. 'I'm starving, to begin with. I've had nothing to eat all day
+except<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> two buns I bought at Paddington Station, and my head's aching
+dreadfully.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear,' said Lindsay, who was a soft-hearted little fellow, and most
+ready to sympathise, especially in those troubles which he best
+understood, 'you must be awfully hungry. We had our tea some time ago,
+but Kezia always gives us supper. Come into the kitchen and let's see
+what we can find&mdash;or no, you're too tired&mdash;you stay here and I'll forage
+for you.'</p>
+
+<p>He went off, returning in a few minutes with a jug of milk and a big
+slice of one of Kezia's own gingerbread cakes. I thought nothing had
+ever tasted so good, and my headache seemed to get better after eating
+it and drinking the milk.</p>
+
+<p>I was just finishing when Harry came in again.</p>
+
+<p>'That's right,' he said, 'I forgot that you must be hungry.'</p>
+
+<p>Then we all three sat and looked at each other without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>'Lindsay,' said Harry at last, 'you'd better finish that exercise you
+were doing when Helena came in,' and Lindsay obediently went back to the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted Harry to speak to me. After all I had told him I thought he
+should have been sorry for me, and should have allowed that I had right
+on my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> side, instead of letting me sit there in silence. At last I could
+bear it no longer.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think,' I said, 'that you should treat me as if I were too
+naughty to speak to. I know quite well that you are not at all fond of
+Mr. Vandeleur yourself, and that should make you sorry for me.'</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose you're thinking of what Gerard Nestor said,' Harry replied.
+'It's true I know very little of Mr. Vandeleur, though I daresay he has
+meant to be kind to us. But what I can't make out is how you could treat
+your grandmother so. Lindsay and I have never had any one like what
+she's been to you.'</p>
+
+<p>His words startled me.</p>
+
+<p>'If I had thought,' I began, 'that she would really care&mdash;or be
+frightened about me&mdash;perhaps I&mdash;' but I had no time to say more, there
+came a knock at the front door and Lindsay started up.</p>
+
+<p>'It's Kezia,' he said, 'she locks the back-door when she goes out in the
+evening and we let her in. She's been to church,' so off he flew, eager
+to be the one to give her the news of my unexpected arrival.</p>
+
+<p>But I did not rush out to meet her, as I would have done at first.
+Harry's words had begun to make me a little less sure than I had been as
+to how even Kezia would look upon my conduct.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>KEZIA'S COUNSEL</h3>
+
+<p>The sound of low voices&mdash;Lindsay's and Kezia's, followed by an
+exclamation, Kezia's of course&mdash;reached Harry and me as we stood there
+in silence looking at each other.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door was pushed open and in hurried my old friend.</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Helena!' she said breathlessly. 'Miss Helena, I could scarce
+believe Master Lindsay! Dear, dear, how frightened your grandmother will
+be!'</p>
+
+<p>I could see that it went against her kindly feelings to receive me by
+blame at the very first, and yet her words showed plainly enough what
+she was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>'Grandmamma will not be frightened,' I said, rather coldly. 'Harry has
+sent her a telegram, and besides&mdash;I don't think she would have been
+frightened any way. It's all quite different now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Kezia, you don't
+understand. She's got other people to care for instead of me.'</p>
+
+<p>Kezia took no notice of this.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear, dear!' she said again. 'To think of you coming here alone! I'm
+sure when Master Lindsay met me at the door saying: "Guess who's here,
+Kezia," I never could have&mdash;' but here I interrupted her.</p>
+
+<p>'If that's all you've got to say to me I really don't care to hear it,'
+I said, 'but it's a queer sort of welcome. I can't go away to-night, I
+suppose, but I will the very first thing to-morrow morning. I daresay
+they'll take me in at the vicarage, but really&mdash;' I broke off
+again&mdash;'considering that this is my own home, and&mdash;and&mdash;that I had no
+one else to go to in all the world except you, Kezia, I do think&mdash;' but
+here my voice failed, I burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>Kezia put her arms round me very kindly.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor dear,' she said, 'whatever mistakes you've made, you must be tired
+to death. Come with me into the dining-room, Miss Helena, there's a
+better fire there, and I'll get you a cup of tea or something, and then
+you must go to bed. Your own room's quite ready, just as you left it.
+Master Lindsay has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> the little chair-bed in Mr. Harry's room&mdash;your
+grandmamma's room, I mean.'</p>
+
+<p>She led me into the dining-room, talking as she went, in this
+matter-of-fact way, to help me to recover myself.</p>
+
+<p>Harry and Lindsay remained behind.</p>
+
+<p>'I have had&mdash;some&mdash;milk, and a piece of&mdash;gingerbread,' I said, between
+my sobs, as Kezia established me in front of the fire in the other room.
+'I don't think I could eat anything else, but I'd like some tea very
+much.'</p>
+
+<p>I shivered in spite of the beautiful big fire close to me.</p>
+
+<p>'You shall have it at once,' said Kezia, hurrying off, 'though it
+mustn't be strong, and I'll make you a bit of toast, too.'</p>
+
+<p>Then I overheard a little bustle in the kitchen, and by the sounds, I
+made out that Harry or Lindsay, or both of them perhaps, were helping
+Kezia in her preparations.</p>
+
+<p>'What nice boys they are,' I thought to myself, and a feeling of shame
+began to come over me that I should have first got to know them when
+acting in a way that they, Harry at least, so evidently thought wrong
+and foolish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But now that, in spite of her disapproval, I felt myself safe in Kezia's
+care, the restraint I had put upon myself gave way more and more. I sat
+there crying quietly, and when the little tray with tea and a tempting
+piece of hot toast (which Harry's red face showed he had had to do with)
+made its appearance I ate and drank obediently, almost without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later I was in bed in my own little room, Kezia tucking me
+in as she had done so very, very often in my life.</p>
+
+<p>'Now go to sleep, dearie,' she said, 'and think of nothing till
+to-morrow morning, except that when things come to the worst they begin
+to get better.'</p>
+
+<p>And sleep I did, soundly and long. Harry and Lindsay had had their
+breakfast two hours before at least, when I woke, and other things had
+happened. A telegram had come in reply to Harry's, thanking him for it,
+announcing Mr. Vandeleur's arrival that very afternoon, and desiring
+Harry to meet him at Middlemoor Station.</p>
+
+<p>They did not tell me of this; perhaps they were afraid it would have
+made me run off again somewhere else. But when my old nurse brought up
+my breakfast we had a long, long talk together. I told her all that I
+had told Harry the night before, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> of course in some ways it was
+easier for her to understand than it had been for him. I could not have
+had a better counsellor. She just put aside all I said about
+grandmamma's not caring for me any longer as simple nonsense; she didn't
+attempt to explain all the causes of my having been left so much to
+myself. She didn't pretend to understand it altogether.</p>
+
+<p>'Your grandmamma will put it all right to you, herself, when she sees
+well to do so,' she said. 'She has just made one mistake, Miss Helena,
+it seems to me&mdash;she has credited you with more sense than perhaps should
+be expected of a child.'</p>
+
+<p>I didn't like this, and I felt my cheeks grow red.</p>
+
+<p>'More sense,' repeated Kezia, 'and she has trusted you too much. It
+should have pleased you to be looked on like that, and if you'd been a
+little older it would have done so. The idea that you could think she
+had left off caring for you would have seemed to her simply impossible.
+She has trusted you too much, and you, Miss Helena, have not trusted her
+at all.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you're forgetting, Kezia, what I heard myself, with my own ears,
+about sending me away to school, and how little she seemed to care.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Kezia smiled, rather sadly.</p>
+
+<p>'My dearie,' she said, 'I have not served Mrs. Wingfield all the years I
+have, not to know her better than that. I daresay you'll never know,
+unless you live to be a mother and grandmother yourself, what the
+thought of parting with you was costing her, at the very time she spoke
+so quietly.'</p>
+
+<p>'But when I fell downstairs,' I persisted, 'she seemed so vexed with me,
+and then&mdash;oh! for days and days before that, I had hardly seen her.'</p>
+
+<p>Kezia looked pained.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, my dear, it must have been hard for you, but harder for your
+grandmamma. There are times in life when all does seem to be going the
+wrong way. And very likely being so very troubled and anxious herself,
+about you as well as about other things, made your grandmamma appear
+less kind than usual.'</p>
+
+<p>Kezia stopped and hesitated a little.</p>
+
+<p>'I think as things are,' she said, 'I can't be doing wrong in telling
+you a little more than you know. I am sure my dear lady will forgive me
+if I make a mistake in doing so, seeing she has not told you more
+herself, no doubt for the best of reasons.'</p>
+
+<p>She stopped again. I felt rather frightened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'What do you mean, Kezia?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'It is about Mrs. Vandeleur. Do you know, my dear Miss Helena, that it
+has just been touch and go these last days, if she was to live or die?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Kezia!' I exclaimed; 'no, I didn't know it was as bad as that,' and
+the tears&mdash;unselfish, unbitter tears this time&mdash;rushed into my eyes as I
+remembered the sweet white face that I had seen in grandmamma's room,
+and the gentle voice that had tried to say something kind and loving to
+me. 'Oh, Kezia, I wish I had known. Do you think it will have hurt her,
+my peeping into the room yesterday?' for I had told my old nurse
+<i>everything</i>.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'No, my dear, I don't think so. She is going to get really better now,
+they feel sure&mdash;as sure as it is ever <i>right</i> to feel about such things,
+I mean. Only yesterday morning I had a letter from your grandmamma,
+saying so. She meant to tell you soon, all about the great anxiety there
+had been&mdash;once it was over&mdash;she had been afraid of grieving and alarming
+you. So, dear Miss Helena, if you had just been patient a <i>little</i>
+longer&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>My tears were dropping fast now, but still I was not quite softened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'All the same, Kezia,' I said, 'they meant to send me to school.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, my dear, if they had, it might have been really for your
+happiness. You would have been sent nowhere that was not as good and
+nice a school as could be. And, of course, though Mrs. Vandeleur has
+turned the corner in a wonderful way, she will be delicate for
+long&mdash;perhaps never quite strong, and the life is lonely for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I wouldn't mind,' I said, for the sight of sweet Cousin Agnes had made
+me feel as if I would do anything for her. 'I wouldn't mind, if
+grandmamma trusted me, and if I could feel she loved me as much as she
+used. I would do my lessons alone, or go to a day-school or anything, if
+only I felt happy again with grandmamma.'</p>
+
+<p>'My dearie, there is no need for you to feel anything else.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes&mdash;there is <i>now</i>, even if there wasn't before,' I said,
+miserably. 'Think of what I have done. Even if grandmamma forgave me for
+coming away here, Cousin Cosmo would not&mdash;he is <i>so</i> stern, Kezia. He
+really is&mdash;you know Harry and Lindsay thought so&mdash;Gerard Nestor told us,
+and though Harry won't speak against him, I can see he doesn't care for
+him.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps they have not got to know each other,' suggested Kezia. 'Master
+Harry is a dear boy; but so was Mr. Cosmo long ago&mdash;I can't believe his
+whole nature has changed.'</p>
+
+<p>Then another thought struck me.</p>
+
+<p>'Kezia,' I said, 'I think grandmamma might have told me about the boys
+being here. She used to tell me far littler things than that. And in a
+sort of a way I think I had a right to know. Windy Gap is my home.'</p>
+
+<p>'It was all settled in a hurry,' said Kezia. 'The school broke up
+suddenly through some cases of fever, and poor Mr. Vandeleur was much
+put about to know where to send the young gentlemen. He couldn't have
+them in London, with Mrs. Vandeleur so ill, and your grandmamma was very
+glad to have the cottage free, and me here to do for them. No doubt she
+would have told you about it. I'm glad for your sake they are here.
+They'll be nice company for you.'</p>
+
+<p>Her words brought home to me the actual state of things.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you think grandmamma will let me stay here a little?' I said. 'I'm
+afraid she will not&mdash;and even if <i>she</i> would, Cousin Cosmo will be so
+angry,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> <i>he</i>'ll prevent it. I am quite sure they will send me to
+school.'</p>
+
+<p>'But what was the use of you coming here then, Miss Helena,' said Kezia,
+sensibly, 'if you knew you would be sent to school after all?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' I said,'I didn't think very much about anything except getting
+away. I&mdash;I thought grandmamma would just be glad to be rid of the
+trouble of me, and that they'd leave me here till Mrs. Vandeleur was
+better and grandmamma could come home again.'</p>
+
+<p>Kezia did not answer at once. Then she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Do you dislike London so very much, then, Miss Helena?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no,' I replied. 'I was very happy alone with grandmamma, except for
+always thinking they were coming, and fancying she didn't&mdash;that she was
+beginning not to care for me. But&mdash;I <i>am</i> sorry now, Kezia, for not
+having trusted her.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's right, my dear; and you'll show it by giving in cheerfully to
+whatever your dear grandmamma thinks best for you?'</p>
+
+<p>I was still crying&mdash;but quite quietly.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll&mdash;I'll try,' I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>When I was dressed I went downstairs, not sorry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> to feel I should find
+the boys there. And in spite of the fears as to the future that were
+hanging over me I managed to spend a happy day with them. They did
+everything they could to cheer me up, and the more I saw of Harry the
+more I began to realise how very, very much brighter a life mine had
+been than his&mdash;how ungrateful I had been and how selfish. It was worse
+for him than for Lindsay, who was quite a child, and who looked to Harry
+for everything. And yet Harry made no complaints&mdash;he only said once or
+twice, when we were talking about grandmamma, that he did wish she was
+<i>their</i> grandmother, too.</p>
+
+<p>'Wasn't that old lady you lived with before like a grandmother?' I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Harry shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>'We scarcely ever saw her,' he said. 'She was very old and ill, and even
+when we did go to her for the holidays we only saw her to say
+good-morning and good-night. On the whole we were glad to stay on at
+school.'</p>
+
+<p>Poor fellows&mdash;they had indeed been orphans.</p>
+
+<p>We wandered about the little garden, and all my old haunts. But for my
+terrible anxiety, I should have enjoyed it thoroughly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Harry,' I said, when we had had our dinner&mdash;a very nice dinner, by the
+bye. I began to think grandmamma must have got rich, for there was a
+feeling of prosperity about the cottage&mdash;fires in several rooms, and
+everything so comfortable. 'Harry, what do you think I should do? Should
+I write to grandmamma and tell her&mdash;that I am very sorry, and that&mdash;that
+I'll be good about going to school, if she fixes to send me?'</p>
+
+<p>The tears came back again, but still I said it firmly.</p>
+
+<p>'I think,' said Harry, 'you had better wait till to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>He did not tell me of Mr. Vandeleur's telegram&mdash;for he had been desired
+not to do so. I should have been still more uneasy and nervous if I had
+known my formidable cousin was actually on his way to Middlemoor!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>'HAPPY EVER SINCE'</h3>
+
+<p>Later in the afternoon&mdash;about three o'clock or so&mdash;Harry looked at his
+watch and started up. We were sitting in the drawing-room talking
+quietly&mdash;Harry had been asking me about my lessons and finding out how
+far on I was, for I was a little tired still, and we had been running
+about a good deal in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' I said, in a disappointed tone, 'where are you going? If you would
+wait a little while, I could come out with you again, I am sure.' For I
+felt as if I did not want to lose any of the time we were together, and
+of course I did not know how soon grandmamma might not send some one to
+take me away to school.</p>
+
+<p>And never since Sharley and the others had gone away had I had the
+pleasure of companions of my own age. There was something about Harry
+which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> reminded me of Sharley, though he was a boy&mdash;something so strong
+and straightforward and <i>big</i>, no other word seems to say it so well.</p>
+
+<p>Harry looked at me with a little smile. Dear Harry, I know now that he
+was feeling even more anxious about me than I was for myself, and that
+brave as he was, it took all his courage to do as he had determined&mdash;I
+mean to plead my cause with his stern guardian. For Mr. Vandeleur was
+almost as much a stranger to him as to me.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid I must,' he said, 'I have to go to Middlemoor, but I shall
+not be away more than an hour and a half. Lindsay&mdash;you'll look after
+Helena, and Helena will look after you and prevent you getting into
+mischief while I'm away.'</p>
+
+<p>For though Lindsay was a very good little boy, and not wild or rough, he
+was rather unlucky. I never saw any one like him for tumbling and
+bumping himself and tearing his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>After Harry had gone, Lindsay got out their stamp album and we amused
+ourselves with it very well for more than an hour, as there were a good
+many new stamps to put into their proper places. Then Kezia came in&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Helena,' she said, 'would you and Master<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> Lindsay mind going into
+the other room? I want to tidy this one up a little, I was so long
+talking with you this morning that I dusted it rather hurriedly.'</p>
+
+<p>We had made a litter, certainly, with the gum-pot and scraps of paper,
+and cold water for loosening the stamps, but we soon cleared it up.</p>
+
+<p>'Isn't it nearly tea-time?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you shall have it as soon as Master Harry comes in,' said Kezia,
+'it is all laid in the dining-room.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, well,' said Lindsay, 'we won't do any more stamps this afternoon;
+come along then, Helena, we'll tell each other stories for a change.'</p>
+
+<p>'You may tell me stories,' I said&mdash;'and I'll try to listen,' I added to
+myself, 'though I don't feel as if I could,' for as the day went on I
+felt myself growing more and more frightened and uneasy. 'I wish Harry
+would come in,' I said aloud, 'I think I should write to grandmamma
+to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>'He won't be long,' said Lindsay, 'Harry always keeps to his time,' and
+then he began his stories. I'm afraid I don't remember what they were.
+There were a great many 'you see's' and 'and so's,' but at another time
+I daresay I would have found them interesting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was just in the middle of one, about a trick some of the boys had
+played an undermaster at their school, when I heard the front door open
+quietly and steps cross the hall. The steps were of more than one
+person, though no one was speaking.</p>
+
+<p>'Stop, Lindsay,' I said, and I sat bolt up in my chair and listened.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever it was had gone into the drawing-room. Then some one came out
+again and crossed to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>'Can it be Harry?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'There's some one with him if it is,' said Lindsay.</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself growing white, and Lindsay grew red with sympathy. He <i>is</i>
+a very feeling boy. But we both sat quite still. Then the door opened
+gently, and some one looked in, but it wasn't Harry, it was Kezia.</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Helena, my love,' she said, 'there's some one in the drawing-room
+who wants to see you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who is it?' I asked, breathlessly, but my old nurse shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll see,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>My heart began to beat with the hope&mdash;a silly, wild hope it was, for of
+course I might have known she could not yet have left Cousin Agnes&mdash;that
+it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> might be grandmamma. And, luckily perhaps, for without it I should
+not have had courage to enter the drawing-room, this idea lasted till I
+had opened the door, and it was too late to run away.</p>
+
+<p>How I did wish I could do so you will easily understand, when I tell you
+that the tall figure standing looking out of the window, which turned as
+I came in, was that of my stern Cousin Cosmo himself!</p>
+
+<p>I must have got very white, I think, though it seemed to me as if all
+the blood in my body had rushed up into my head and was buzzing away
+there like lots and lots of bees, but I only remember saying 'Oh!' in a
+sort of agony of fear and shame. And the next thing I recollect was
+finding myself on a chair and Cousin Cosmo beside me on another, and,
+wonderful to say, he was holding my hand, which had grown dreadfully
+cold, in one of his. His grasp felt firm and protecting. I shut my eyes
+just for a moment and fancied to myself that it seemed as if papa were
+there.</p>
+
+<p>'But it can't last,' I thought, 'he's going to be awfully angry with me
+in a minute.'</p>
+
+<p>I did not speak. I sat there like a miserable little criminal, only
+judges don't generally hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> prisoners' hands when they are going to
+sentence them to something very dreadful, do they? I might have thought
+of that, but I didn't. I just squeezed myself together to bear whatever
+was coming.</p>
+
+<p>This was what came.</p>
+
+<p>I heard a sort of sigh or a deep breath, and then a voice, which it
+almost seemed to me I had never heard before, said, very, very gently&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My poor little girl&mdash;poor little Helena. Have I been such an ogre to
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>I could <i>scarcely</i> believe my ears&mdash;to think that it was Cousin Cosmo
+speaking to me in that way! I looked up into his face; I had really
+never seen it very well before. And now I found out that the dark,
+deep-set eyes were soft and not stern&mdash;what I had taken for hardness and
+severity had, after all, been mostly sadness and anxiety, I think.</p>
+
+<p>'Cousin Cosmo,' I said, 'are you going to forgive me, then? And
+grandmamma, too? <i>I am</i> sorry for running away, but I didn't understand
+properly. I will go to school whenever you like, and not grumble.'</p>
+
+<p>My tears were dropping fast, but still I felt strangely soothed.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell me more about it all,' said Mr. Vandeleur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> 'I want to understand
+from yourself all about the fancies and mistakes there have been in your
+head.'</p>
+
+<p>'Would you first tell me,' I said, 'how Cousin Agnes is? It was a good
+deal about her I didn't understand?'</p>
+
+<p>'Much, much better,' he replied, 'thank God. She is going to be almost
+well again, I hope.'</p>
+
+<p>And then, before I knew what I was about, I found myself in the middle
+of it all&mdash;telling him everything&mdash;the whole story of my unhappiness,
+more fully even than I had told it to Harry and Kezia, for though he did
+not say much, the few words he put in now and then showed me how
+wonderfully he understood. (Cousin Cosmo <i>is</i> a very clever man.)</p>
+
+<p>And when at last I left off speaking, <i>he</i> began and talked to me for a
+long time. I could never tell if I tried, <i>how</i> he talked&mdash;so kindly,
+and nicely, and rightly&mdash;putting things in the right way, I mean, not
+making out it was <i>all</i> my fault, which made me far sorrier than if he
+had laid the whole of the blame on me.</p>
+
+<p>I always do feel like that when people, especially big people, are
+generous in that sort of way. One thing Cousin Cosmo said at the end
+which I must tell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'We have a good deal to thank Harry for,' it was, 'both you and I,
+Helena. But for his manly, sensible way of judging the whole, we might
+never have got to understand each other, as I trust we now always shall.
+And more good has come out of it, too. I have never known Harry for what
+<i>he</i> is, before to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am so very glad,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Now,' said Mr. Vandeleur, looking at his watch, 'it is past five
+o'clock. I shall spend the night at the hotel at Middlemoor, but I
+should like to stay with you three here, as late as possible. Do you
+think your good Kezia can give me something to eat?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course she can,' I said, all my hospitable feelings awakened&mdash;for I
+can never feel but that Windy Gap is my particular home&mdash;'Shall I go and
+ask her? Our tea must be ready now in the dining-room.'</p>
+
+<p>'That will do capitally,' said Cousin Cosmo. 'I'll have a cup of tea now
+with you three, in the first place, and then as long as the daylight
+lasts you must show me the lions of Windy Gap, Helena. It <i>is</i> a quaint
+little place,' he added, looking round, 'and I am sure it must have a
+great charm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> of its own, but I am afraid my aunt and you must have found
+it very cold and exposed in bad weather?'</p>
+
+<p>'Sometimes,' I said; 'the last winter here was pretty bad.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' he answered, 'it is not a place for the middle of winter,' but
+that was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>I was turning to leave the room when another thought struck me.</p>
+
+<p>'Cousin Cosmo,' I asked timidly, 'will grandmamma want me to go to
+school very soon?'</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, rather a funny smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Put it out of your mind till I go back to London, and talk things
+over,' he replied. 'I want all of us to be as happy as possible this
+evening. Send Harry in here for a moment.'</p>
+
+<p>I met Harry outside in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>'Is it all right?' he said, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Harry,' I said, 'I can scarcely believe he's the same! He's been so
+awfully kind.'</p>
+
+<p>That evening <i>was</i> a very happy one. Cousin Cosmo was interested about
+everything at Windy Gap, and after supper he talked to Harry and me of
+all sorts of things, and promised to send us down some books, which
+pleased me, as it did seem as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> if he must mean me to stay where I was
+for a few days at any rate.</p>
+
+<p>Still, I did not feel, of course, quite at rest till I had written a
+long, long letter to grandmamma and heard from her in return. I need not
+repeat all she said about what had passed&mdash;it just made me feel more
+than ever ashamed of having doubted her and of having been so selfish.</p>
+
+<p>But what she said at the end of her letter about the plans she and
+Cousin Cosmo had been making was almost too delightful. I could scarcely
+help jumping with joy when I read it.</p>
+
+<p>'Harry,' I called out, 'I'm not to go to school at all, just fancy! I'm
+to stay here with you and Lindsay till you go back to school&mdash;till a few
+days before, I mean, and we're to travel to London together and be all
+at Chichester Square. Cousin Agnes and grandmamma are going away to the
+sea-side now immediately, but they'll be back before we come. Cousin
+Agnes is so much better!'</p>
+
+<p>Harry did not look quite as pleased as I was&mdash;about the London part of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm awfully glad you're going to stay here,' he answered; 'and I do
+want to see your grandmother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> I suppose it'll be all right,' he went
+on, 'and that they won't find Lindsay and me a nuisance in London.'</p>
+
+<p>I was almost vexed with him.</p>
+
+<p>'Harry,' I said, 'don't <i>you</i> begin to be fanciful. You don't <i>know</i> how
+Cousin Cosmo spoke of you the other day.'</p>
+
+<p>And after all it did come all right. My story finishes up like a
+fairy-tale&mdash;'They lived happy ever after!'</p>
+
+<p>Well no, not quite that, for it is not yet four years since all this
+happened, and four years would be a very short 'ever after.'</p>
+
+<p>But I may certainly say we have lived most happily ever since that time
+till now.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Agnes is much, much better. She never will be quite strong&mdash;never
+a very strong person, I mean. But she is <i>so</i> sweet, our boys and I
+often think we should scarcely like her to be any different in any way
+from what she is, though of course not really ill or suffering.</p>
+
+<p>And 'our boys'&mdash;yes, that is what they are&mdash;dear brothers to me, just
+like real ones, and just like grandsons to dear, dear grandmamma. They
+come to Chichester Square regularly for their holidays&mdash;it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> is their
+'new home,' as it is mine. But we have another home&mdash;and it is not much
+of the holidays except the Christmas ones that we&mdash;grandmamma and we
+three&mdash;spend in London.</p>
+
+<p>For Windy Gap is still ours&mdash;and Kezia lives there and is always ready
+to have us&mdash;and Cousin Cosmo has built on two or three more rooms, and
+our summers there are just <i>perfect</i>!</p>
+
+<p>The Nestors came back to Moor Court long ago, and I see almost as much
+of them as in the old days, as they now come to their London house every
+year for some months, and we go to several classes together, though I
+have a daily governess as well.</p>
+
+<p>Next year Sharley is to 'come out.' Just fancy! I am sure every one will
+think her very pretty. But not many can know as well as I do that her
+face only tells a very small part of her beauty. She is so very, very
+good.</p>
+
+<p>I daresay you will wonder how Cousin Cosmo&mdash;grave, stern Cousin
+Cosmo&mdash;likes it all. His quiet solemn house the home of three adopted
+children, who are certainly not solemn, and not always 'quiet' by any
+means.</p>
+
+<p>I can only tell you that he said to grandmamma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> not very long ago, and
+she told me, and I told Harry&mdash;that he had 'never been so happy since he
+was a boy himself,' all but a son to her and a brother to 'Paul'&mdash;that
+was my father, you know.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My New Home, by Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My New Home, by Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My New Home
+
+Author: Mary Louisa Molesworth
+
+Illustrator: L. Leslie Brooke
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26310]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NEW HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Annie McGuire, Lindy Walsh and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+               +------------------------------------------+
+               |            Transcriber's Note            |
+               |Spelling, punctuation and inconsistencies |
+               |in the original book have been retained.  |
+               +------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Book Cover]
+
+
+
+
+  MY NEW HOME
+
+[Illustration: 'I'd like to know your sisters that are as little as me's
+names.'--p. 39.] _Front._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Title Page]
+
+
+  MY NEW HOME
+
+  by Mrs Molesworth
+
+  Illustrated by
+  L Leslie Brooke
+
+  Macmillan and Co
+  London: 1894
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER I                                                         PAGE
+
+    WINDY GAP                                                          1
+
+  CHAPTER II
+
+    AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER                                         15
+
+  CHAPTER III
+
+    ONE AND SEVEN                                                     28
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+
+    NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN                                            43
+
+  CHAPTER V
+
+    A HAPPY DAY                                                       58
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+
+    'WAVING VIEW'                                                     71
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+
+    THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES                                         83
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+
+    TWO LETTERS                                                       96
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+
+    A GREAT CHANGE                                                   111
+
+  CHAPTER X
+
+    NO. 29 CHICHESTER SQUARE                                         125
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+
+    AN ARRIVAL                                                       139
+
+  CHAPTER XII
+
+    A CATASTROPHE                                                    153
+
+  CHAPTER XIII
+
+    HARRY                                                            168
+
+  CHAPTER XIV
+
+    KEZIA'S COUNSEL                                                  183
+
+  CHAPTER XV
+
+    'HAPPY EVER SINCE'                                               195
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  'I'd like to know your sisters that are as little as me's
+  names.'                                                  _Frontispiece_
+
+  Grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated,
+  so the next hour was spent very happily.                            67
+
+  'I do wonder why they are so late'.                                 82
+
+  A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
+  respectfully to grandmamma.                                        126
+
+  It was the portrait of a young girl.                               139
+
+  Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
+  first.                                                             160
+
+  It was all uphill too.                                             173
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WINDY GAP
+
+
+My name is Helena, and I am fourteen past. I have two other Christian
+names; one of them is rather queer. It is 'Naomi.' I don't mind having
+it, as I am never called by it, but I don't sign it often because it is
+such an odd name. My third name is not uncommon. It is just 'Charlotte.'
+So my whole name is 'Helena Charlotte Naomi Wingfield.'
+
+I have never been called by any short name, like 'Lena,' or 'Nellie.' I
+think the reason must be that I am an only child. I have never had any
+big brother to shout out 'Nell' all over the house, or dear baby sisters
+who couldn't say 'Helena' properly. And what seems still sadder than
+having no brothers or sisters, I have never had a mother that I could
+remember. For mamma died when I was not much more than a year old, and
+papa six months before that.
+
+But my history has not been as sad as you might think from this. I was
+very happy indeed when I was quite a little child. Till I was nine years
+old I really did not know what troubles were, for I lived with
+grandmamma, and she made up to me for everything I had not got: we loved
+each other so very dearly.
+
+I will tell you about our life.
+
+Grandmamma was not at all the sort of person most children think of when
+they hear of a grandmother in a story. She was not old, with white hair
+and spectacles and always a shawl on, even in the house, and very
+old-fashioned in her ways. She did wear caps, at least I _think_ she
+always did, for, of course, she was not _young_. But her hair was very
+nicely done under them, and they were pretty fluffy things. She made
+them herself, and she made a great many other things herself--for me
+too. For, you will perhaps wonder more than ever at my saying what a
+happy child I was, when I tell you that we were really _very_ poor.
+
+I cannot tell you exactly how much or how little we had to live upon,
+and _most_ children would not understand any the better if I did. For a
+hundred pounds a year even, sounds a great deal to a child, and yet it
+is very little indeed for one lady by herself to live upon, and of
+course still less for two people. And I don't think we had much more
+than that. Grandmamma told me when I grew old enough to understand
+better, that when I first came to live with her, after both papa and
+mamma were dead, and she found that there was no money for me--that was
+not poor papa's fault; he had done all that could be done, but the money
+was lost by other people's wrong-doing--well, as I was saying, when
+grandmamma found how it was, she thought over about doing something to
+make more. She was very clever in many ways; she could speak several
+languages, and she knew a lot about music, though she had given up
+playing, and she might have begun a school as far as her cleverness
+went. But she had no savings to furnish a large enough house with, and
+she did not know of any pupils. She could not bear the thought of
+parting with me, otherwise she might perhaps have gone to be some grand
+sort of housekeeper, which even quite, _quite_ ladies are sometimes, or
+she might have joined somebody in having a shop. But after a lot of
+thinking, she settled she would rather try to live on what she had, in
+some quiet, healthy, country place, though I believe she did earn some
+money by doing beautiful embroidery work, for I remember seeing her make
+lovely things which were never used in our house. This could not have
+gone on for long, however, as granny's eyes grew weak, and then I think
+she did no sewing except making our own clothes.
+
+Now I must tell you about our home. It was quite a strange place to
+grandmamma when we first came there, but _I_ can never feel as if it had
+been so. For it was the first place I can remember, as I was only a year
+old, or a little more--and children very seldom remember anything before
+they are three--when we settled down at Windy Gap.
+
+That was the name of our cottage. It is a nice breezy name, isn't it?
+though it does sound rather cold. And in some ways it _was_ cold, at
+least it was windy, and quite suited its name, though at some seasons of
+the year it was very calm and sheltered. Sheltered on two sides it
+always was, for it stood in a sort of nest a little way up the
+Middlemoor Hills, with high ground on the north and on the east, so that
+the only winds really to be feared could never do us much harm. It was
+more a nest than a 'gap,' for inside, it was so cosy, so very cosy,
+even in winter. The walls were nice and thick, built of rather
+gloomy-looking, rough gray stone, and the windows were deep--deep enough
+to have window-seats in them, where granny and I used often to sit with
+our books or work, as the inner part of the rooms, owing to the shape of
+the windows, was rather dark, and the rooms of course were small.
+
+We had a little drawing-room, which we always sat in, and a still
+smaller dining-room, which was very nice, though in reality it was more
+a kitchen than a dining-room. It had a neat kitchen range and an oven,
+and some things had to be cooked there, though there was another little
+kitchen across the passage where our servant Kezia did all the messy
+work--peeling potatoes, and washing up, and all those sorts of things,
+you know. The dining-room-kitchen was used as little as possible for
+cooking, and grandmamma was so very, very neat and particular that it
+was almost as pretty and cosy as the drawing-room.
+
+Upstairs there were three bedrooms--a good-sized one for grandmamma, a
+smaller one beside it for me, and a still smaller one with a rather
+sloping roof for Kezia. The house is very easy to understand, you see,
+for it was just three and three, three upstairs rooms over three
+downstairs ones. But there was rather a nice little entrance hall, or
+closed-in porch, and the passages were pretty wide. So it did not seem
+at all a poky or stuffy house though it was so small. Indeed, one could
+scarcely fancy a 'Windy Gap Cottage' anything but fresh and airy, could
+one?
+
+I was never tired of hearing the story of the day that grandmamma first
+came to Middlemead to look for a house. She told it me so often that I
+seem to know all about it just as if I had been with her, instead of
+being a stupid, helpless little baby left behind with my nurse--Kezia
+was my nurse then--while poor granny had to go travelling all about,
+house-hunting by herself!
+
+What made her first think of Middlemead she has never been able to
+remember. She did not know any one there, and she had never been there
+in her life. She fancies it was that she had read in some book or
+advertisement perhaps, that it was so very healthy, and dear
+grandmamma's one idea was to make me as strong as she could; for I was
+rather a delicate child. But for me, indeed, I don't think she would
+have cared where she lived, or to live at all, except that she was so
+very good.
+
+'As long as any one is left alive,' she has often said to me, 'it shows
+that there is something for them to be or to do in the world, and they
+must try to find out what it is.'
+
+But there was not much difficulty for grandmamma to find out what _her_
+principal use in the world was to be! It was all ready indeed--it was
+poor, little, puny, delicate, helpless _me_!
+
+So very likely it was as she thought--just the hearing how splendidly
+healthy the place was--that made her travel down to Middlemead in those
+early spring days, that first sad year after mamma's death, to look for
+a nest for her little fledgling. She arrived there in pretty good
+spirits; she had written to a house-agent and had got the names of two
+or three 'to let' houses, which she at once tramped off from the station
+to look at, for she was very anxious not to spend a penny more than she
+could help. But, oh dear, how her spirits went down! The houses were
+dreadful; one was a miserable sort of genteel cottage in a row of others
+all exactly the same, with lots of messy-looking children playing about
+in the untidy strips of garden in front. _That_ would certainly not do,
+for even if the house itself had been the least nice, grandmamma felt
+sure I would catch measles and scarlet-fever and hooping-cough every
+two or three days! The next one was a still more genteel 'semi-detached'
+villa, but it was very badly built, the walls were like paper, and it
+faced north and east, and had been standing empty, no doubt, for these
+reasons, for years. _It_ would not do. Then poor granny plodded back to
+the house agent's again. He isn't only a house agent, he has a
+stationer's and bookseller's shop, and his name is Timbs. I know him
+quite well. He is rather a nice man, and though she was a stranger of
+course, he seemed sorry for grandmamma's disappointment.
+
+'There are several very good little houses that I am sure you would
+like,' he said to her, 'and one or two of them are very small--but it is
+the rent. For though Middlemead is scarcely more than a village it is
+much in repute for its healthiness, and the rents are rising.'
+
+'What are the rents of the smallest of the houses you speak of?'
+grandmamma asked.
+
+'Forty pounds is the cheapest,' Mr. Timbs answered, 'and the situation
+of that is not so good. Rather low and chilly in winter, and somewhat
+lonely.'
+
+'I don't mind about the loneliness,' said grandmamma, 'but a low or
+damp situation would never do.'
+
+Mr. Timbs was looking over his lists as she spoke. Her words seemed to
+strike him, and he suddenly peered up through his spectacles.
+
+'You don't mind about loneliness,' he repeated. 'Then I wonder----' and
+he turned over the leaves of his book quickly. 'There _is_ another house
+to let,' he said; 'to tell the truth I had forgotten about it, for it
+has never been to let unfurnished before; and it would be considered too
+lonely for all the year round by most people.'
+
+'Are there no houses near?' asked grandmamma. 'I don't fancy Middlemead
+is the sort of place where one need fear burglars, and besides,' she
+went on with a little smile, 'we should not have much of value to steal.
+The silver plate that I have I shall leave for the most part in London.
+But in case of sudden illness or any alarm of that kind, I should not
+like to be out of reach of everybody.'
+
+'There are two or three small cottages close to the little house I am
+thinking of,' said Mr. Timbs, 'and the people in them are very
+respectable. I leave the key with one of them.'
+
+Then he went on to tell grandmamma exactly where it was, how to get
+there, and all about it, and with every word, dear granny said her
+heart grew lighter and lighter. She really began to hope she had found
+a nest for her poor little homeless bird--that was _me_, you
+understand--especially when Mr. Timbs finished up by saying that the
+rent was only twelve pounds a year, one pound a month. And she _had_
+made up her mind to give as much as twenty pounds if she could find
+nothing nice and healthy for less.
+
+She looked at her watch; yes, there was still time to go to see Windy
+Gap Cottage and yet get back to the station in time for the train she
+had fixed to go back by--that is to say, if she took a fly. She has
+often told me how she stood and considered about that fly. Was it worth
+while to go to the expense? Yes, she decided it was, for after all if
+she found nothing to suit us at Middlemead she would have to set off on
+her travels again to house-hunt somewhere else. It would be penny wise
+and pound foolish to save that fly.
+
+Mr. Timbs seemed pleased when she said she would go at once--I suppose
+so many people go to house agents asking about houses which they never
+take, that when anybody comes who is quite in earnest they feel like a
+fisherman when he has really hooked a fish. He grew quite eager and
+excited and said he would go with the lady himself, if she would allow
+him to take a seat beside the driver to save time. And of course granny
+was very glad for him to come.
+
+It was getting towards evening when she saw Windy Gap for the first
+time, and it happened to be a very still evening--the name hardly seemed
+suitable, and she said so to Mr. Timbs. He smiled and shook his head and
+answered that he only hoped if she did come there to live that she would
+not find the name _too_ suitable. Still, though there was a good deal of
+wind to be _heard_, he went on to explain that the cottage was, as I
+have already said, well sheltered on the cold sides, and also well and
+strongly built.
+
+'None of your "paper-mashy," one brick thick, run-up-to-tumble-down
+houses,' said Mr. Timbs with satisfaction, which was certainly quite
+true.
+
+The end of it was, as of course you know already, that grandmamma fixed
+to take it. She talked it all over with Mr. Timbs, who 'made notes,' and
+promised to write to her about one or two things that could not be
+settled at once, and then 'with a very thankful heart,' as she always
+says when she talks of that day, she drove away again off to the
+station.
+
+The sun was just beginning to think about setting when she walked down
+the little steep garden path and a short way over the rough, hill
+cart-track--for nothing on wheels can come quite close up to the gate of
+Windy Gap--and already she could see what a beautiful show there was
+going to be over there in the west. She stood still for a minute to look
+at it.
+
+'Yes, madam,' said old Timbs, though she had not spoken, 'yes, that is a
+sight worth adding a five pound note on to the rent of the cottage for,
+in my opinion. The sunsets here are something wonderful, and there's no
+house better placed for seeing them than Windy Gap. "Sunset View" it
+might have been called, I have often thought.'
+
+'I can quite believe what you say,' grandmamma replied, 'and I am very
+glad to have had a glimpse of it on this first visit.'
+
+Many and many a time since then have we sat or stood together there,
+granny and I, watching the sun's good-night. I think she must have begun
+to teach me to look at it while I was still almost a baby. For these
+wonderful sunsets seem mixed up in my mind with the very first things I
+can remember. And still more with the most solemn and beautiful thoughts
+I have ever had. I always fancied when I was _very_ tiny that if only we
+could have pushed away the long low stretch of hills which prevented
+our seeing the very last of the dear sun, we should have had an actual
+peep into heaven, or at least that we should have seen the golden gates
+leading there. And I never watched the sun set without sending a message
+by him to papa and mamma. Only in my own mind, of course. I never told
+grandmamma about it for years and years. But I did feel sure he went
+there every night and that the beautiful colours had to do with that
+somehow.
+
+Grandmamma felt as if the lovely glow in the sky was a sort of good omen
+for our life at Windy Gap, and she felt happier on her journey back in
+the railway that evening than she had done since papa and mamma died.
+
+She told Kezia and me all about it--you will be amused at my saying she
+told _me_, for of course I was only a baby and couldn't understand. But
+she used to fancy I _did_ understand a little, and she got into the way
+of talking to me when we were alone together especially, almost as if
+she was thinking aloud. I cannot remember the time when she didn't talk
+to me 'sensibly,' and perhaps that made me a little old for my age.
+Granny says I used to grow quite grave when she talked seriously, and
+that I would laugh and crow with pleasure when she seemed bright and
+happy. And this made her try more than anything else to _be_ bright and
+happy.
+
+Dear, dear grandmamma--how very, exceedingly unselfish she was! For I
+now see what a really sad life most people would have thought hers. All
+her dearest ones gone; her husband, her son and her son's wife--mamma, I
+mean--whom she had loved nearly, if not quite as much, as if she had
+been her own daughter; and she left behind when she was getting old, to
+take care of one tiny little baby girl--and to be so poor, too. I don't
+think even now I quite understand her goodness, but every day I am
+getting to see it more and more, even though at one time I was both
+ungrateful and very silly, as you will hear before you come to the end
+of this little history.
+
+And now that I have explained as well as I can about grandmamma and
+myself, and how and why we came to live in the funny little gray stone
+cottage perched up among the Middlemoor Hills, I will go on with what I
+can remember myself; for up till now, you see, all I have written has
+been what was told to me by other people, especially of course by
+granny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER
+
+
+No, perhaps I was rather hasty in saying I could now go straight on
+about what I remember myself. There are still a few things belonging to
+the time before I can remember, which I had better explain now, to keep
+it all in order.
+
+I have spoken of grandmamma as being alone in the world, and so she
+was--as far as having no one _very_ near her--no other children, and not
+any brothers or sisters of her own. And on my mother's side I had no
+relations worth counting. Mamma was an only child, and her father had
+married again after _her_ mother died, and then, some years after, he
+died himself, and mamma's half-brothers and sisters had never even seen
+her, as they were out in India. So none of her relations have anything
+to do with my story or with _me_.
+
+But grandmamma had one nephew whom she had been very fond of when he
+was a boy, and whom she had seen a good deal of, as he and papa were at
+school together. His name was not the same as ours, for he was the son
+of a sister of grandpapa's, not of a brother. It was Vandeleur, Mr.
+Cosmo Vandeleur.
+
+He was abroad when our great troubles came--I forget where, for though
+he was not a soldier, he moved about the world a good deal to all sorts
+of out-of-the-way places, and very often for months and months together,
+grandmamma never heard anything about him. And one of the things that
+made her still lonelier and sadder when we first came to Windy Gap was
+that he had never answered her letters, or written to her for a very
+long time.
+
+She thought it was impossible that he had not got her letters, and
+almost more impossible that he had not seen poor papa's death in some of
+the newspapers.
+
+And as it happened he had seen it and he had written to her once,
+anyway, though she never got the letter. He had troubles of his own that
+he did not say very much about, for he had married a good while ago, and
+though his wife was very nice, she was very, _very_ delicate.
+
+Still, his name was familiar to me. I can always remember hearing
+grandmamma talk of 'Cosmo,' and when she told me little anecdotes of
+papa as a boy, his cousin was pretty sure to come into the story.
+
+And Kezia used to speak of him too--'Master Cosmo,' she always called
+him. For she had been a young under-servant of grandmamma's long ago,
+when grandpapa was alive and before the money was lost.
+
+That is one thing I want to say--that though Kezia was our only servant,
+she was not at all common or rough. She turned herself into what is
+called 'a maid-of-all-work,' from being my nurse, just out of love for
+granny and me. And she was very good and very kind. Since I have grown
+older and have seen more of other children and how they live, I often
+think how much better off I was than most, even though my home was only
+a cottage and we lived so simply, and even poorly, in some ways.
+Everything was so open and happy about my life. I was not afraid of
+anybody or anything. And I have known children who, though their parents
+were very rich and they lived very grandly, had really a great deal to
+bear from cross or unkind nurses or maids, whom they were frightened to
+complain of. For children, unless they are _very_ spoilt, are not so
+ready to complain as big people think. I had nothing to complain of, but
+if I had had anything, it would have been easy to tell grandmamma all
+about it at once; it would never have entered my head not to tell her.
+She knew everything about me, and I knew everything about her that it
+was good for me to know while I was still so young--more, perhaps, than
+some people would think a child should know--about our not having much
+money and needing to be careful, and things like that. But it did not do
+me any harm. Children don't take _that_ kind of trouble to heart. I was
+proud of being treated sensibly, and of feeling that in many little ways
+I could help her as I could not have done if she had not explained.
+
+And if ever there was anything she did not tell me about, even the
+keeping it back was done in an open sort of way. Granny made no
+mysteries. She would just say simply--
+
+'I cannot tell you, my dear,' or 'You could not understand about it at
+present.'
+
+So that I trusted her--'always,' I was going to say, but, alas, there
+came a time when I did not trust her enough, and from that great fault
+of mine came all the troubles I ever had.
+
+_Now_ I will go straight on.
+
+Have you ever looked back and tried to find out what is really the very
+first thing you can remember? It is rather interesting--now and then the
+b--no, I don't mean to speak of them till they come properly into my
+story--now and then I try to look back like that, and I get a strange
+feeling that it is all there, if only I could keep hold of the thread,
+as it were. But I cannot; it melts into a mist, and the very first thing
+I _can_ clearly remember stands out the same again.
+
+This is it.
+
+I see myself--those looking backs always are like pictures; you seem to
+be watching yourself, even while you feel it is yourself--I see myself,
+a little trot of a girl, in a pale gray merino frock, with a muslin
+pinafore covering me nearly all over, and a broad sash of Roman colours,
+with a good deal of pale blue in it (I have the sash still, so it isn't
+much praise to my memory to know all about _it_), tied round my waist,
+running fast down the short steep garden path to where granny is
+standing at the gate. I go faster and faster, beginning to get a little
+frightened as I feel I can't stop myself. Then granny calls out--
+
+'Take care, take care, my darling,' and all in a minute I feel
+safe--caught in her arms, and held close. It is a lovely feeling. And
+then I hear her say--
+
+'My little girlie must not try to run so fast alone. She might have
+fallen and hurt herself badly if granny had not been there.'
+
+There is to me a sort of parable, or allegory, in that first thing I can
+remember, and I think it will seem to go on and fit into all my life,
+even if I live to be as old as grandmamma is now. It is like feeling
+that there are always arms ready to keep us safe, through all the
+foolish and even wrong things we do--if only we will trust them and run
+into them. I hope the children who _may_ some day read this won't say I
+am preaching, or make fun of it. I must tell what I really have felt and
+thought, or else it would be a pretence of a story altogether. And this
+first remembrance has always stayed with me.
+
+Then come the sunsets. I have told you a little about them, already. I
+must often have looked at them before I can remember, but one specially
+beautiful has kept in my mind because it was on one of my birthdays.
+
+I think it must have been my third birthday, though granny is half
+inclined to think it was my fourth. _I_ don't, because if it had been my
+fourth I should remember _some_ things between it and my third
+birthday, and I don't--nothing at all, between the running into granny's
+arms, which she too remembers, and which was before I was three, there
+is nothing I can get hold of, till that lovely sunset.
+
+I was sitting at the window when it began. I was rather tired--I suppose
+I had been excited by its being my birthday, for dear granny always
+contrived to give me some extra pleasures on that day--and I remember I
+had a new doll in my lap, whom I had been undressing to be ready to be
+put to bed with me. I almost think I had fallen asleep for a minute or
+two, for it seems as if all of a sudden I had caught sight of the sky.
+It must have been particularly beautiful, for I called out--
+
+'Oh, look, look, they're lighting all the beauty candles in heaven.
+Look, Dollysweet, it's for my birfday.'
+
+Grandmamma was in the room and she heard me. But for a minute or two she
+did not say anything, and I went on talking to Dolly and pretending or
+fancying that Dolly talked back to me.
+
+Then granny came softly behind me and stood looking out too. I did not
+know she was there till I heard her saying some words to herself. Of
+course I did not understand them, yet the sound of them must have stayed
+in my ears. Since then I have learnt the verses for myself, and they
+always come back to me when I see anything very beautiful--like the
+trees and the flowers in summer, or the stars at night, and above all,
+lovely sunsets.
+
+But all I heard then was just--
+
+          'Good beyond compare,
+  If thus Thy meaner works are fair'--
+
+and all I _remembered_ was--
+
+  '... beyond compare,
+              ... are fair.'
+
+I said them over and over to myself, and a funny fancy grew out of them,
+when I got to understand what 'beyond' meant. I took it into my head
+that 'compare' was the name of the hills, which, as I have said, came
+between us and the horizon on the west, and prevented our seeing the
+last of the sunset.
+
+And I used to make wonderful fairy stories to myself about the country
+beyond or behind those hills--the country I called 'Compare,' where
+something, or everything--for I had lost the words just before, was
+'fair' in some marvellous way I could not even picture to myself. For I
+soon learnt to know that 'fair' meant beautiful--I think I learnt it
+first from some of the old fairy stories grandmamma used to tell me when
+we sat at work.
+
+That evening she took me up in her arms and kissed me.
+
+'The sun is going to bed,' she said to me, 'and so must my little
+Helena, even though it is her birthday.'
+
+'And so must Dollysweet,' I said. I always called that doll
+'Dollysweet,' and I ran the words together as if it was one name.
+
+'Yes, certainly,' said granny.
+
+Then she took my hand and I trotted upstairs beside her, carrying
+Dollysweet, of course. And there, up in my little room--I had already
+begun to sleep alone in my little room, though the door was always left
+open between it and grandmamma's--there, at the ending of my birthday
+was another lovely surprise. For, standing in a chair beside my cot was
+a bed for my doll--_so_ pretty and cosy-looking.
+
+Wasn't it nice of granny? I never knew any one like her for having _new_
+sort of ideas. It made me go to bed so very, very happily, and that is
+not always the case the night of a birthday. I have known children who,
+even when they are pretty big, cry themselves to sleep because the
+long-looked-for day is over.
+
+It did not matter to me that my dolly's bed had cost nothing--except,
+indeed, what was far more really precious than money--granny's loving
+thought and work. It was made out of a strong cardboard box--the lid
+fastened to the box, standing up at one end like the head part of a
+French bed. And it was all beautifully covered with pink calico, which
+grandmamma had had 'by her.' Granny was rather old-fashioned in some
+ways, and fond of keeping a few odds and ends 'by her.' And over that
+again, white muslin, all fruzzled on, that had once been pinafores of
+mine, but had got too worn to use any more in that way.
+
+There were little blankets, too, worked round with pink wool, and little
+sheets, and everything--all made out of nothing but love and
+contrivance!
+
+It was so delightful to wake the next morning and see Dollysweet in her
+nest beside me. She slept there every night for several years, and I am
+afraid after some time she slept there a good deal in the day also. For
+I gave up playing with dolls rather young--playing with _a_ doll, I
+should say. I found it more interesting to have lots of little ones, or
+of things that did instead of dolls--dressed-up chessmen did very well
+at one time--that I could make move about and act and be anything I
+wanted them to be, more easily than one or two big dolls.
+
+Still I always took care of Dollysweet. I never neglected her or let her
+get dirty and untidy, though in time, of course, her pink-and-white
+complexion faded into pallid yellow, and her bright hair grew dull, and,
+worst of all--after that I never could bear to look at her--one of her
+sky-blue eyes dropped, not out, but _into_ her hollow head.
+
+Poor old Dollysweet!
+
+The day after my third birthday grandmamma began to teach me to read.
+_I_ couldn't have remembered that it was that very day, but she has told
+me so. I had very short lessons, only a quarter of an hour, I think, but
+though she was very kind, she was very strict about my giving my
+attention while I was at them. She says that is the part that really
+matters with a very little child--the learning to give attention. Not
+that it would signify if the actual things learnt up to six or seven
+came to be forgotten--so long as a child knows how to learn.
+
+At first I liked my lessons very much, though I must have been a rather
+tiresome child to teach. For I would keep finding out likenesses in the
+letters, which I called 'little black things,' and I wouldn't try to
+learn their names. Grandmamma let me do this for a few days, as she
+thought it would help me to distinguish them, but when she found that
+every day I invented a new set of likenesses, she told me that wouldn't
+do.
+
+'You may have one likeness for each,' she said, 'but only if you really
+try to remember its name too.'
+
+And I knew, by the sound of her voice, that she meant what she said.
+
+So I set to work to fix which of the 'likes,' as I called them, I would
+keep.
+
+'A' had been already a house with a pointed roof, and a book standing
+open on its two sides, and a window with curtains drawn at the top, and
+the wood of the sash running across half-way, and a good many other
+things which you couldn't see any likeness to it in, I am sure. But just
+as I was staring at it again, I saw old Tanner, who lived in one of the
+cottages below our house, settling his double ladder against a wall.
+
+I screamed out with pleasure--
+
+'I'll have Tan's ladder,' I said, and so I did. 'A' was always Tan's
+ladder after that. And a year or two later, when I heard some one speak
+of the 'ladder of learning,' I felt quite sure it had something to do
+with the opened-out ladder with the bar across the middle.
+
+After all, I have had to get grandmamma's help for some of these baby
+memories. Still, as I _can_ remember the little events I have now
+written down, I suppose it is all right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ONE AND SEVEN
+
+
+I will go on now to the time I was about seven years old. 'Baby' stories
+are interesting to people who know the baby, or the person that once was
+the baby, but I scarcely think they are very interesting to people who
+have never seen you or never will, or, if they do, would not know it was
+you!
+
+All these years we had gone on quietly living at Windy Gap, without ever
+going away. Going away never came into my head, and if dear grandmamma
+sometimes wished for a little change--and, indeed, I am sure she must
+have done--she never spoke of it to me. Now and then I used to hear
+other children, for there were a few families living near us, whose
+little boys and girls I very occasionally played with, speak of going to
+the sea-side in the summer, or to stay with uncles and aunts or other
+relations in London in the winter, to see the pantomimes and the shops.
+But it never struck me that anything of that sort could come in my way,
+not more than it ever entered my imagination that I could become a
+princess or a gipsy or anything equally impossible.
+
+Happy children are made like that, I think, and a very good thing it is
+for them. And I was a very happy child.
+
+We had our troubles, troubles that even had she wished, grandmamma could
+not have kept from me. And I do not think she did wish it. She knew that
+though the _background_ of a child's life should be contented and happy,
+it would not be true teaching or true living to let it believe any life
+can be without troubles.
+
+One trouble was a bad illness I had when I was six--though this was
+really more of a trouble to granny and Kezia than to me. For I did not
+suffer much pain. Sometimes the illnesses that frighten children's
+friends the most do not hurt the little people themselves as much as
+less serious things.
+
+This illness came from a bad cold, and it _might_ have left me delicate
+for always, though happily it didn't. But it made granny anxious, and
+after I got better it was a long time before she could feel easy-minded
+about letting me go out without being tremendously wrapped up, and
+making sure which way the wind was, and a lot of things like that, which
+are rather teasing.
+
+I might not have given in as well as I did had it not happened that the
+winter which came after my illness was a terribly severe one, and my own
+sense--for even between six and seven children _can_ have some common
+sense--told me that nothing would be easier than to get a cough again if
+I didn't take care. So on the whole I was pretty good.
+
+But those months of anxiety and the great cold were very trying for
+grandmamma. Her hair got quite, _quite_ white during them.
+
+These severe winters do not come often at Middlemoor; not very often, at
+least. We had two of them during the time we lived there, 'year in and
+year out,' as Kezia called it. But between them we had much milder ones,
+one or two quite wonderfully mild, and others middling--nothing really
+to complain of. Still, a very tiny cottage house standing by itself is
+pretty cold during the best of winters, even though the walls were
+thick. And in wet or stormy days one does get tired of very small rooms
+and few of them.
+
+But the year that followed that bitter winter brought a pleasant little
+change into my life--the first variety of the kind that had come to me.
+I made real acquaintance at last with some other children.
+
+This was how it began.
+
+I was seven, a little past seven, at the time.
+
+One morning I had just finished my lessons, which of course took more
+than a quarter of an hour now, and was collecting my books together, to
+put them away, when I heard a knock at the front door.
+
+I was in the drawing-room--_generally_, especially in winter, I did my
+lessons in the dining-room. For we never had two fires at once, and for
+that reason we sat in the dining-room in the morning if it was cold,
+though granny was most particular always to have a fire in the
+drawing-room in the afternoon. I think now it was quite wonderful how
+she managed about things like that, never to fall into irregular or
+untidy ways, for as people grow old they find it difficult to be as
+active and energetic as is easy for younger ones. It was all for my
+sake, and every day I feel more and more grateful to her for it.
+
+Never once in my life do I remember going into the dining-room to dinner
+without first meeting grandmamma in the drawing-room, when a glance
+would show her if my face and hands had been freshly washed and my hair
+brushed and my dress tidy, and upstairs again would I be sent in a
+twinkling if any of these matters were amiss.
+
+But this morning I had had my lessons in the drawing-room; to begin
+with, it was not winter now, but spring, and not a cold spring either;
+and in the second place, Kezia had been having a baking of pastry and
+cakes in the dining-room oven, and granny knew my lessons would have
+fared badly if my attention had been disturbed every time the cakes had
+to be seen to.
+
+I was collecting my books, I said, to carry them into the other room,
+where there was a little shelf with a curtain in front on purpose for
+them, as we only kept our nicest books in the drawing-room, when this
+rat-a-tat knock came to the door.
+
+I was very surprised. It was so seldom any one came to the front door in
+the morning, and, indeed, not often in the afternoon either, and this
+knock sounded sharp and important somehow. Though I was still quite a
+little girl I knew it would vex grandmamma if I tried to peep out to see
+who it was--it was one of the things she would have said 'no lady should
+ever do'--and I could not bear her to think I ever forgot how even a
+very small lady should behave.
+
+The only thing I could do was to look out of the side window, not that I
+could see the door from there, but I had a good view of the road where
+it passed the short track, too rough to call a road, leading to our own
+little gate.
+
+No cart or carriage could come nearer than that point; the tradesmen
+from Middlemoor always stopped there and carried up our meat or bread or
+whatever it was--not very heavy basketfuls, I suspect--to the kitchen
+door, and I used to be very fond of standing at this window, watching
+the unpacking from the carts.
+
+There was no cart there to-day, but what _was_ there nearly took my
+breath away.
+
+'Oh, grandmamma,' I called out, quite forgetting that by this time Kezia
+must have opened the door; 'oh, grandmamma, do look at the lovely
+carriage and ponies.'
+
+Granny did not answer. She had not heard me, for she was in the
+dining-room, as I might have known. But I had got into the habit of
+calling to her whenever I was pleased or excited, and generally, somehow
+or other, she managed to hear. And I could not leave the window, I was
+so engrossed by what I saw.
+
+There was a girl in the carriage, to me she seemed a grown-up lady. She
+was sitting still, holding the reins. But I did not see the figure of
+another lady which by this time had got hidden by the house, as she
+followed the little groom whom she had sent on to ask if Mrs. Wingfield
+was at home, meaning at first, to wait till he came back. I heard her
+afterwards explaining to grandmamma that the boy was rather deaf and she
+was afraid he had not heard her distinctly, so she had come herself.
+
+And while I was still gazing at the carriage and the ponies, the
+drawing-room door, already a little ajar, was pushed wide open and I
+heard Kezia saying she would tell Mrs. Wingfield at once.
+
+'Mrs. Nestor; you heard my name?' said some one in a pleasant voice.
+
+I turned round.
+
+There stood a tall lady in a long dark green cloak, she had a hat on,
+not a bonnet, and I just thought of her as another lady, not troubling
+myself as to whether she was younger or older than the one in the
+carriage, though actually she was her mother.
+
+I was not shy. It sounds contradictory to say so, but still there is
+truth in it. I had seen too few people in my life to know anything about
+shyness. And all I ever had had to do with were kind and friendly. And I
+remembered 'my manners,' as old-fashioned folk say.
+
+I clambered down from the window-seat, and stroked my pinafore, which
+had got ruffled up, and came forward towards the lady, holding out my
+hand. I had no need to go far, for she had come straight in my
+direction.
+
+'Well, dear?' she said, and again I liked her voice, though I did not
+exactly think about it, 'and are you Mrs. Wingfield's little girl?'
+
+'My name is Helena Charlotte Naomi Wingfield,' I said, very gravely and
+distinctly, 'and grandmamma is Mrs. Wingfield.'
+
+Mrs. Nestor was smiling still more by this time, but she smiled in a
+nice way that did not at all give me any feeling that she was making fun
+of what I said.
+
+'And how old are you, my dear?--let me see, you have so many names!
+which are you called by, or have you any short name?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'No, only "girlie," and that is just for grandmamma to say. I am always
+called "Helena."'
+
+'It is a very pretty name,' said my new friend. 'And how old are you,
+Helena?'
+
+'I am past seven,' I said. 'My birthday comes in the spring, in March.
+Have you any little girls, and are any of them seven? I would like to
+know some little girls as big as me.'
+
+'I have lots,' said Mrs. Nestor. 'One of them is in the pony-carriage
+outside. I daresay you can see her from the window.'
+
+I think my face must have fallen.
+
+'Oh,' I said, disappointedly. 'She's a lady.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Mrs. Nestor, now laughing outright; 'if you knew her,
+or when you know her, as I hope you will soon, I'm afraid you will think
+her much more of a tomboy than a lady. Sharley is only eleven, though
+she is tall. Her name is Charlotte, like one of yours, but we call her
+Sharley; we spell it with an "S" to prevent people calling her
+"Charley," for she is boyish enough already, I am afraid. Then I have
+three girls younger--nine, six, and three, and two boys of----'
+
+I was _so_ interested--my eyes were very wide open, and I shouldn't
+wonder if my mouth was too--that for once in my life I was almost sorry
+to see grandmamma, who at that moment opened the door and came in.
+
+'I hope Helena has been a good hostess?' she said, after she had shaken
+hands with Mrs. Nestor, whom she had met before once or twice. 'We have
+been having a cake baking this morning, and I was just giving some
+directions about a special kind of gingerbread we want to try.'
+
+'I should apologise for coming in the morning,' said Mrs. Nestor, but
+grandmamma assured her it was quite right to have chosen the morning.
+'Helena and I go out in the afternoon whenever the weather is fine
+enough, and I should have been sorry to miss you. Now, my little girl,
+you may run off to Kezia. Say good-bye to Mrs. Nestor.'
+
+I felt very disappointed, but I was accustomed to obey at once. But Mrs.
+Nestor read the disappointment in my eyes: that was one of the nice
+things about her. She was so 'understanding.'
+
+She turned to grandmamma.
+
+'One of my daughters is in the pony-carriage,' she said. 'Would you
+allow Helena to go out to her? She would be pleased to see your garden,
+I am sure.'
+
+'Certainly,' said grandmamma. 'Put on your hat and jacket, Helena, and
+ask Miss'--she had caught sight of the girl from the window and saw that
+she was pretty big--'Miss Nestor to walk about with you a little.'
+
+I flew off--too excited to feel at all timid about making friends by
+myself.
+
+'Call her Sharley,' said Mrs. Nestor, as I left the room. 'She would not
+know herself by any other name.'
+
+In a minute or two I was running down the garden-path. When I found
+myself fairly out at the gate, and within a few steps of the girl, I
+think a feeling of shyness _did_ come over me, though I did not myself
+understand what it was. I hung back a little and began to wonder what I
+should say. I had so seldom spoken to a child belonging to my own rank
+in life. And I had not often spoken to any of the poorer children about,
+as there happened to be none in the cottages near us, and grandmamma was
+perhaps a little _too_ anxious about me, too afraid of my catching any
+childish illness. She says herself that she thinks she was. But of
+course I am now so strong and big that it makes it rather different.
+
+I had not much time left in which to grow shy, however. As soon as the
+girl saw that I was plainly coming towards her she sprang out of the
+carriage.
+
+'Has mother sent you to fetch me?' she said.
+
+I looked at her. Now that she was out of the carriage and standing, I
+could see that she was not as tall as grandmamma, or as her own mother,
+and that her frock was a good way off the ground. And her hair was
+hanging down her back. Still she seemed to me almost a grown-up lady.
+
+I am afraid her first impression of _me_ must have been that I was
+extremely stupid. For I went on staring at her for a moment or two
+before I answered. She was indeed opening her lips to repeat the
+question when I at last found my voice.
+
+'I don't know,' I said. And if she did not think me stupid before I
+spoke, she certainly must have done so when I did.
+
+'I don't know,' I repeated, considering over what her question exactly
+meant. 'No, I don't think it was fetching you. I was to ask you--would
+you like to walk round our garden? And p'raps--your mamma was going to
+tell me all your names, but grandmamma told me to run away. I'd like to
+know your sisters that are as little as me's names.'
+
+I remember exactly what I said, for Sharley has often told me since how
+difficult it was for her not to burst out laughing at the funny way I
+spoke. But tomboy though she was in some respects, she had a very tender
+heart, and like her mother she was quick at understanding. So she
+answered quite soberly--
+
+'Thank you. I should like very much to walk round your garden--though
+running would be even nicer. I'm not very fond of walking if I can run,
+and you have got such jolly steep paths and banks.'
+
+I eyed the steep paths doubtfully.
+
+'You hurt yourself a good deal if you run too fast down the paths,' I
+said. 'The stones are so sharp.'
+
+Sharley laughed.
+
+'You speak from experience,' she said. 'That grass bank would be lovely
+for tobogganing.'
+
+'I don't know what that is,' I replied.
+
+'We'll show you if you come to see us at home,' she said. 'But I suppose
+I'd better not try anything like that to-day. You want to know my
+sisters' names? They are Anna and Valetta and Baby----'
+
+'Never mind about Baby,' I interrupted, rather abruptly, I fear. 'How
+big is Anna, and--the other one?'
+
+Sharley stood still and looked me well over.
+
+'Do you really mean "big"?' she said, 'or "old"? Anna is nine and Val is
+six; but as for bigness--Anna is nearly as tall as I am, and Val is a
+good bit bigger than you.'
+
+I felt and looked nearly ready to cry.
+
+'And I'm past seven,' I said, 'I wish I wasn't so little. It's like
+being a baby, and I don't care for babies.'
+
+'Never mind,' replied Sharley consolingly, 'you needn't be at all
+babyish because you're little. One of our boys is very little, but he's
+not a bit of a baby. I'm sure Val will like to play with you, and so
+will Anna--and all of us, for that matter.'
+
+I began to think Sharley a very nice girl. I put my hand in hers
+confidingly.
+
+'I'd like to come,' I said, 'and I'd like to play that funny name down
+the grass-bank here, if you'll show me how.'
+
+'All right,' she said. 'We'll have to ask leave, I suppose. But you
+haven't told me your name yet. The children are sure to ask me.'
+
+I repeated it--or them--solemnly.
+
+'"Charlotte"--that's my name,' Sharley remarked.
+
+'I'm never called it,' I said. 'I'm always called Helena.'
+
+Sharley looked rather surprised.
+
+'Fancy!' she said. '_We_ all call each other by short names and
+nicknames and all kinds of absurd names. Anna is generally Nan, and the
+boys are Pert and Quick--at least those are the names that have lasted
+longest. I daresay it's partly because they are just a little like their
+real names--Percival and Quintin.'
+
+'What a great many of you there are!' I said, but Sharley took my remark
+in perfectly good part, even though I went on to add--'It's like the
+baker's children--I counted them once, but I couldn't get them right;
+sometimes they came to nine and sometimes to eleven.'
+
+'Do you mean the baker's on the way to High Middlemoor?' said Sharley.
+'Oh yes, it must be them--papa calls them the baker's dozen always. No,
+we're not as many as that. We are only seven--us four girls, and Pert
+and Quick, and Jerry, our big brother, who's at school. Dear me, it must
+be dull to be only one!'
+
+Just then we heard the voices of grandmamma and Sharley's mother coming
+towards us. And a minute or two later the pony-carriage drove away
+again, Sharley nodding back friendly farewells.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN
+
+
+I stood looking after it as long as it was in sight. I felt quite
+strange, almost a little dazed, as if I had more than I could manage to
+think over in my head. Grandmamma, who was standing behind me, put her
+hand on my shoulder.
+
+I looked up at her, and I saw that her face seemed pleased.
+
+'Is that a nice lady, grandmamma?' I said.
+
+I do not quite know why I asked about Sharley's mother in that way, for
+I felt sure she was nice. I think I wanted grandmamma to help me to
+arrange my ideas a little.
+
+'Very nice, dear,' she said. 'Did you not think she spoke very kindly?'
+
+'Yes, I did, grandmamma,' I replied. I had a rather 'old-fashioned' way
+of speaking sometimes, I think.
+
+'And her little girl--well, she is not a little girl, exactly, is
+she?--seems very bright and kind too,' grandmamma went on.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, but then I hesitated. Grandmamma wanted to find out
+what I was thinking.
+
+'You don't seem quite sure about it?' she said.
+
+'Yes, grandmamma. She is a very kind girl, but she made me feel funny.
+She has such a lot of brothers and sisters, and she says it must be so
+dull to be only one. Grandmamma, is it dull to be only one?'
+
+Grandmamma did not smile at my odd way of asking her what I could have
+told myself, better than any one else. A little sad look came over her
+face.
+
+'I hope not, dear,' she answered. 'My little girl does not find her life
+dull?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'I love you, grandmamma, and I love Kezia, but I don't know about "dull"
+and things like that. I think Sharley thinks I'm a very stupid little
+girl, grandmamma.'
+
+And all of a sudden, greatly to dear granny's surprise and still more to
+her distress, I burst into tears.
+
+She led me back into the house, and was very kind to me. But she did not
+say very much. She only told me that she was sure Sharley did not think
+anything but what was nice and friendly about me, and that I must not be
+a fanciful little woman. And then she sent me to Kezia, who had kept an
+odd corner of her pastry for me to make into stars and hearts and other
+shapes with her cutters, as I was very fond of doing. So that very soon
+I was quite bright and happy again.
+
+But in her heart granny was saying that it would be a very good thing
+for me to have some companions of my own age, to prevent my getting
+fanciful and unchildlike, and, worst of all, too much taken up with
+myself.
+
+A few days after that, grandmamma told me that the three Nestor girls
+were coming twice a week to read French with her. I think I have said
+already that grandmamma was very clever, very clever indeed, and that
+she knew several foreign languages. She had been a great deal in other
+countries when grandpapa was alive, and she could speak French
+beautifully. So I wasn't surprised, and only very pleased when she told
+me about Sharley and her sisters. For I was too little to understand
+what any one else would have known in a moment, that dear granny was
+going to do this to make a little more money. My illness and all the
+things she had got for me--even the having more fires--had cost a good
+deal that last winter, and she had asked the vicar of our village to let
+her know if he heard of any family wanting French or German lessons for
+their children.
+
+This was the reason of Mrs. Nestor's call, and it was because they were
+going to settle about the French lessons that grandmamma had sent me out
+of the room. It was not till long afterwards that I understood all about
+it.
+
+Just now I was very pleased.
+
+'Oh, how nice!' I said, 'and may I play with them after the lessons are
+done, do you think, grandmamma? And will they ask me to go to their
+house to tea sometimes? Sharley said they would--at least she nearly
+said it.'
+
+'I daresay you will go to their house some day. I think Mrs. Nestor is
+very kind, and I am sure she would ask you if she thought it would
+please you,' said grandmamma. But then she stopped a little. 'I want you
+to understand, Helena dear, that these children are coming here really
+to learn French. So you must not think about playing with them just at
+first, that must be as their mother likes.'
+
+Grandmamma did not say what she felt in her own mind--that she would not
+wish to seem to try to make acquaintance with the Nestors, who were very
+rich and important people, through giving lessons to their children. For
+she was proud in a right way--no, I won't call it proud--I think
+dignified is a better word.
+
+But Mrs. Nestor was too nice herself not to see at once the sort of
+person grandmamma was. She was almost _too_ delicate in her feelings,
+for she was so afraid of seeming to be in the least condescending or
+patronising to us, that she kept back from showing us as much kindness
+as she would have liked to do. So it never came about that we grew very
+intimate with the family at Moor Court--that was the name of their
+home--I really saw more of the three girls at our own little cottage
+than in their own grand house.
+
+But as I go on with my story you will see that there was a reason for my
+telling about them, and about how we came to know them, rather
+particularly.
+
+The French lessons began the next week. Sharley and her sisters used to
+come together, sometimes walking with a maid, sometimes driving over in
+a little pony-cart--not the beautiful carriage with the two ponies;
+that was their mother's--but what is called a governess-cart, in which
+they drove a fat old fellow called Bunch, too fat and lazy to be up to
+much mischief. When they drove over they brought a young groom with
+them, but their governess very seldom came. I think Mrs. Nestor thought
+it would be pleasanter for granny to give the lessons without a grown-up
+person being there, and Sharley said their governess used that time to
+give the two boys Latin lessons. Mrs. Nestor would have been very glad
+if grandmamma would have agreed to teach Pert and Quick French too, but
+granny did not think she could spare time for it, though a year or two
+later when Percival had gone to school she did let Quick join what we
+called the second class.
+
+I should have explained that though I could not read or write French at
+all well, I could speak it rather nicely, as grandmamma had taken great
+pains to accustom me to do so since I was quite little.
+
+I think she had a feeling that I might have to be a governess or
+something of the kind when I was grown-up, and that made her very
+anxious about my lessons from the beginning of them. And though things
+have turned out quite differently from that, I have always been _very_
+glad that I was well taught from the first. It is such a comfort to me
+now that I am really growing big to be able to show grandmamma that I am
+not far back for my age compared with other girls.
+
+Sharley was the first class all by herself, and Nan and Vallie were the
+second. I did not do any lessons with them, but after each class had had
+half an hour's teaching we had conversation for another half hour, and
+when the conversation time began I was always sent for. Grandmamma had
+asked Mrs. Nestor if she would like that, and Mrs. Nestor was very
+pleased.
+
+We had great fun at the 'conversation.' You can scarcely believe what
+comical things the little girls said when they first began to try to
+talk. Grandmamma sometimes laughed till the tears came into her eyes--I
+do love to see her laugh--and I laughed too, partly, I think, because
+she did, for the funny things they said did not seem quite so funny to
+me, of course, as to a big person.
+
+But altogether the French lessons were very nice and brought some
+variety into our lives. I think granny and I looked forward to them as
+much as the Nestor children did.
+
+Grandmamma's birthday happened to come about a fortnight after they
+began. I told Sharley about it one day when she was out in the garden
+with me, while her sisters were at their lesson. We used to do that way
+sometimes, only we had to promise to speak French all the time, so that
+I really had a little to do with teaching them as well as grandmamma,
+and to tease me, on these occasions Sharley would call me
+'mademoiselle,' and make Nan and Vallie do the same. They used in turn,
+you see, to be with me while Sharley was with granny.
+
+It was rather difficult to make her understand about grandmamma's
+birthday, I remember, for she could scarcely speak French at all then,
+and at last she burst out into English, for she got very interested
+about it.
+
+'I'll tell Mrs. Wingfield we have been talking English,' she said, 'and
+I'll tell her it was all my fault. But I must understand what you are
+saying.'
+
+'It's about grandmamma's birthday,' I said. 'I do so want to make a plan
+for it.'
+
+Sharley's eyes sparkled. She loved making plans, and so did Vallie, who
+was very quick and bright about everything, while Nan was rather a
+sleepy little girl, though exceedingly good-natured. I don't think I
+_ever_ knew her speak crossly.
+
+'I heard something about "fete,"' said Sharley, 'about fete and
+grandmamma. Why do you call her birthday her "fete"?'
+
+'I didn't,' I replied. '"Fete" doesn't generally mean birthday--it means
+something else, something about a saint's day. I said I wanted to
+"feter" dear granny on her birthday, and I wondered what I could do.
+Last year I worked a little case in that stiff stuff with holes in, to
+keep stamps in, and Kezia made tea-cakes. But I can't think of anything
+I can work for her this year, and tea-cakes are only tea-cakes,' and I
+sighed.
+
+'Don't look so unhappy,' said Sharley, '_we'll_ plan. We're rather short
+of plans just now, and we always like to have some on hand for first
+thing in the morning--Val and I do at least. Nan never wakes up
+properly. Leave it to us, Helena, and the next time we come I'll tell
+you what we've thought of.'
+
+I had a good deal of faith in Sharley's cleverness in some things,
+already, though I can't say that it shone out in speaking French. So I
+promised to wait to see what she and Vallie thought of.
+
+When we went in we told grandmamma that we had been speaking English. I
+made it up into very good French, and Sharley said it, which pleased
+granny.
+
+'And what was it you were so eager about that you couldn't wait to say
+it, or hear it in French?' she asked Sharley.
+
+We had not expected this, and Sharley got rather red.
+
+'It's a secret,' she blurted out.
+
+Grandmamma looked just a little grave.
+
+'I am not very fond of secrets,' she said. 'And Helena has never had
+any.'
+
+'Oh yes, I have, grandmamma,' I said. I did not mean to contradict
+rudely, and I don't think it sounded like that, though it looks rather
+rude written down. 'I had one this time last year--don't you
+remember?--about your little stamp case.'
+
+Granny's face brightened up. It did not take very quick wits to put two
+and two together, and to guess from what I said that the secret had to
+do with her birthday. And Sharley was too anxious for grandmamma not to
+be vexed, to think about her having partly guessed the secret.
+
+'Ah, well!' said granny, 'I think I can trust you both.'
+
+'Yes, indeed, you may,' said Sharley. 'There's nothing about mischief
+in it, and the only secrets mother's ever been vexed with me about had
+to do with mischief.'
+
+'Sharley dressed up a pillow to tumble on Pert's head from the top of
+his door, once,' said Nan in her slow solemn voice, 'and he screamed and
+screamed.'
+
+'It was because he was such a boasty boy, about never being frightened,'
+said Sharley, getting rather red. 'But I never did it again. And this
+secret is quite, quite a different kind.'
+
+I felt very eager for the next French day, as we called them, to come,
+to hear what Sharley had thought of. I told Kezia about it, and then I
+almost wished I had not, for she said she did not know that grandmamma
+would be pleased at my talking about her birthday and 'such like' to
+strangers.
+
+I think Kezia forgot sometimes how very little a girl I still was. I did
+not understand what she meant, and all I could say was that the three
+girls were not strangers to me. Afterwards I saw what Kezia was thinking
+of, she was afraid of the Nestors sending some present to grandmamma,
+and that, she would not have liked.
+
+But Mrs. Nestor was too good and sensible for anything of that kind.
+
+When Sharley and Nan and Vallie came the next time, I ran to meet them,
+full of anxiety to know if they had made any 'plans.' They all looked
+very important, but rather to my disappointment the first thing Sharley
+said to me was--
+
+'Don't ask us yet, Helena. We've promised mother not to tell. She's
+going to come to fetch us to-day, and she's made a lovely plan, but
+first she has to speak about it to your grandmamma.'
+
+'Then it won't be a surprise,' I began, but Vallie answered before I had
+time to say any more.
+
+'Oh yes, it will. There's to be a surprise mixed up with it, and we're
+to settle that part of it all ourselves--you and us.'
+
+I found it very difficult to keep to speaking French that day, I can
+tell you. And it seemed as if the hour and a half of lessons spread out
+to twice as much before Mrs. Nestor at last came.
+
+We all ran out into the garden while she went in to talk to grandmamma.
+They were very kind and did not keep us long waiting, and soon we heard
+granny calling us from the window. Her face was quite pleased and
+smiling. I saw in a moment that she was not going to say I should not
+have spoken of her birthday to the little girls.
+
+'Mrs. Nestor is thinking of a great treat for you--and for me, Helena,'
+she said. 'And she and I want you to know about it at once, so that you
+may all talk about it together and enjoy it beforehand as well. Some
+little bird, it seems, has flown over to Moor Court and told that next
+Tuesday week will be your old granny's birthday, and Mrs. Nestor has
+invited us to spend the afternoon of it there. You will like that, will
+you not?'
+
+I looked up at grandmamma, feeling quite strange. You will hardly
+believe that I had never in my life paid even a visit of this simple
+kind.
+
+'Yes,' I whispered, feeling myself getting pink all over, as I knew that
+Mrs. Nestor was looking at me, 'yes, thank you.'
+
+Then dear little Vallie came close up to me, and said in a low voice--
+
+'Now we can settle about the surprise. Come quick, Helena--the surprise
+will be the fun.'
+
+And when I found myself alone with the others again, all three of them,
+even Nan, chattering at once, I soon found my own tongue again, and the
+strange, unreal sort of feeling went off. They were very simple unspoilt
+children, though their parents were rich and what I used to call
+'grand.' It is quite a mistake to think that the children who live in
+very large houses and have ponies and lots of servants and everything
+they can want are sure to be spoilt. Very often it is quite the
+opposite. For, if their parents are good and wise, they are _extra_
+careful not to spoil them, knowing that the sort of trials that cannot
+be kept away from poorer children, and which are a training in
+themselves in some ways, are not likely to come to _their_ children. I
+even think now, looking back, that there was really more risk of being
+spoilt, for me myself, than for Sharley and her brothers and sisters.
+
+Being allowed to be selfish is the real beginning and end of being
+spoilt, I am quite sure.
+
+The 'surprise' they had thought of was a very simple one, and one that I
+knew grandmamma would like. It was that we should have tea out-of-doors,
+in an arbour where there was a table and seats all round. And we were to
+decorate it with flowers, and a wicker arm-chair was to be brought out
+for granny, and wreathed with greenery and flowers, to show that she was
+queen of the feast.
+
+'So it will be a "fete," after all, Helena,' said Sharley.
+
+They were nearly as eager and pleased about it as I was myself, for
+they had already learnt to love my grandmamma very dearly.
+
+'There's only one thing,' we kept saying to each other every time we met
+before the great day, 'it _mustn't_ rain. Oh, do let us _hope_ it will
+be fine,--beautifully fine.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A HAPPY DAY
+
+
+And it _was_ a fine day! Things after all do not always go wrong in this
+world, though some people are fond of talking as if they did.
+
+That day, that happy birthday, stands out in my mind so clearly that I
+think I must write a good deal about it, even though to most children
+there would not seem anything very remarkable to tell. But to me it was
+like a peep into fairyland. To begin with, it was the very first time in
+my life that I had ever paid a visit of any kind except once or twice
+when I had had tea in rather a dull fashion at the vicarage, where there
+were no children and no one who understood much about them. Miss Linden,
+the vicar's sister, a very old-maid sort of lady, though she meant to be
+kind, had my tea put out in a corner of the room by myself, while she
+and grandmamma had theirs in a regular drawing-room way. They had
+muffins, I remember, and Miss Linden thought muffins not good for little
+girls, and my bread-and-butter was cut thicker than I ever had it at the
+cottage, and the slice of currant-bread was not nearly as good as
+Kezia's home-made cake--even the plainest kind.
+
+No, my remembrances of going out to tea at the vicarage were not very
+enlivening.
+
+How different the visit to Moor Court was!
+
+It began--the pleasure of it at least to me--the first thing when I
+awoke that morning, and saw without getting out of bed--for my room was
+so little that I could not help seeing straight out of the window, and I
+never had the blinds drawn down--that it was a perfectly lovely morning.
+It was the sort of morning that gives almost certain promise of a
+beautiful day.
+
+In our country, because of the hills, you see, it isn't always easy to
+tell beforehand what the weather is going to be, unless you really study
+it. But even while I was quite a child I had learnt to know the signs of
+it very well. I knew about the lights and shadows coming over the hills,
+the gray look at a certain side, the way the sun set, and lots of things
+of that kind which told me a good deal that a stranger would never have
+thought of. I knew there were some kinds of bright mornings which were
+really less hopeful than the dull and gloomy ones, but there was nothing
+of that sort to-day, so I curled myself round in bed again with a
+delightful feeling that there was nothing to be feared from the weather.
+
+I did not dare to get up till I heard Kezia's knock at the door--for
+that was one of grandmamma's rules, and though she had not many rules,
+those there _were_ had to be obeyed, I can assure you.
+
+I must have fallen asleep again, for the next thing I remember was
+hearing grandmamma's voice, and there she was, standing beside my bed.
+
+'Oh, granny!' I called out, 'what a shame for you to be the one to wake
+me on _your_ birthday.'
+
+'No, dear,' said grandmamma, 'it is quite right. Kezia hasn't been yet,
+it is just about her time.'
+
+I sprang up and ran to the table, where I had put my little present for
+grandmamma the night before, for of course I had got a present for her
+all of my own, besides having planned the treat with the Nestors.
+
+I remember what my present was that year. It was a little box for
+holding buttons, which I had bought at the village shop, and it had a
+picture of the old, old Abbey Church at Middlemoor on its lid.
+Grandmamma has that button-box still, I saw it in her work-basket only
+yesterday. I was very proud of it, for it was the first year I had saved
+pennies enough to be able to _buy_ something instead of working a
+present for grandmamma.
+
+She did seem so pleased with it. I remember now the look in her eyes as
+she stooped to kiss me. Then she turned and lifted something which I had
+not noticed from a chair standing near.
+
+'This is my present for my little girl,' she said, and though I was
+inclined to say that it was not fair for her to give me presents on her
+birthday, I was so delighted with what she held out for me to see that I
+really could scarcely speak.
+
+What do you think it was?
+
+A new frock--the prettiest by far I had ever had. The stuff was white,
+embroidered by grandmamma herself in sky-blue, in such a pretty pattern.
+She had sat up at night to do it after I was in bed.
+
+'Oh, grandmamma,' I said, 'how beautiful it is! Oh, may I--' but then I
+stopped short--'may I wear it to-day?' was what I was going to say. But,
+'oh no,' I went on, 'it might get dirtied.'
+
+'You are to wear it to-day, dear,' said grandmamma, 'if that is what you
+were going to say, so you needn't spoil your pleasure by being afraid of
+its getting dirtied; it will wash perfectly well, for I steeped the silk
+I worked it in, in salt and water before using it, to make the colour
+quite fast. I will leave it here on the back of the chair, and when the
+time comes for you to get ready I will dress you myself, to be sure that
+it is all quite right.'
+
+I kept peeping at my pretty frock all the time I was dressing; the sight
+of it seemed the one thing wanting to complete my happiness. For though
+Sharley and Nan and Vallie were never too grandly dressed, their things
+were always fresh and pretty, and I _had_ been thinking to myself that
+none of my summer frocks were quite as nice or new-looking as theirs.
+
+And to-day, though only May, was really summer.
+
+Grandmamma wouldn't let me do very much that morning, as she did not
+want me to be tired for the afternoon.
+
+'Is it a very long walk to Moor Court?' I asked her.
+
+Grandmamma smiled, a little funnily, I thought afterwards.
+
+'Yes,' she said, 'it is between two and three miles.'
+
+'Then we must set off early,' I said, 'so as not to have to go too fast
+and be tired when we get there. I don't mind for coming back about being
+tired; there'll be nothing to do then but go to bed, it'll all be over!'
+and I gave a little sigh, 'but I don't want to think about its being
+over yet.'
+
+'We must start at half-past two,' said grandmamma. 'That will be time
+enough.'
+
+Long before half-past two, as you can fancy, I was quite ready. My frock
+fitted perfectly, and even Kezia, who was rather afraid of praising my
+appearance for fear of making me conceited, said with a smile that I did
+look very nice.
+
+I quite thought so myself, but I really think all my pride was for
+grandmamma's frock.
+
+I settled myself in the window-seat looking towards the road, as I have
+explained.
+
+'Stay there quietly,' grandmamma said to me, 'till I call you.'
+
+And again I noticed a sort of little twinkle in her eyes, of which
+before long I understood the reason. I must have been sitting there a
+quarter of an hour at least when I thought I heard wheels coming. It
+wasn't the usual time for the butcher or baker, or any of the
+cart-people, as I called them, and wheels of any other kind seldom came
+our way. So I looked out with great curiosity to see what it could be.
+
+To my astonishment, there came trotting along the short bit of level
+road leading to our own steep path the two ponies and the pretty
+pony-carriage that had so delighted me the first time I saw them.
+
+Sharley was driving, the little groom behind her. But this time my first
+feeling was certainly not one of pleasure. On the contrary I started in
+dismay.
+
+'Oh dear,' I thought, 'there's something the matter, and Sharley has
+come herself to say we can't go.'
+
+I rushed upstairs, the tears already very near my eyes.
+
+'Granny, granny,' I exclaimed, 'the pony-carriage has come and Sharley's
+there! I'm sure she's come to tell us we can't go.'
+
+My voice broke down before I could say anything more. Grandmamma was
+coming out of her room quite ready, and even in the middle of my fright
+I could not help thinking how nice she looked in her pretty dark gray
+dress and black lace cloak, which, though she had had it a great, great
+many years, always seemed to me rich and grand enough for the Queen
+herself to wear.
+
+'My dear little girl,' she said, 'you really must not get into the way
+of fancying misfortunes before they come. It is a very bad habit. Why
+shouldn't Sharley have come to fetch us? Don't you think it would be
+nicer to drive to Moor Court than to walk all that way along the dusty
+road?'
+
+'Oh, granny,' I cried, and my tears, if they were there, vanished away
+like magic. 'Oh, granny, that would be too lovely. But are you quite
+sure?'
+
+'Quite,' said grandmamma, 'I promised to keep it a secret to please
+Sharley, as she is so fond of surprises. Run down now to meet her and
+tell her we are quite ready.'
+
+How perfectly delightful that drive was! I sat with my back to the
+ponies, on the low seat opposite grandmamma and Sharley.
+
+'Vallie wanted to come too,' said Sharley, 'but that seat isn't very
+comfortable for two.'
+
+It was very comfortable for one, at least I found it so. I had hardly
+ever been in a carriage before, and Sharley drove so nice and fast; she
+was very proud of being allowed to drive the two ponies. But they were
+so good, they seemed, like every one and everything else, determined to
+make that day a perfectly happy one.
+
+When we got to the lodge of Moor Court Sharley began to drive more
+slowly, and looked about as if expecting some one.
+
+'The others said they would come to meet us,' she explained, 'and
+sometimes Pert is rather naughty about startling the ponies, even though
+he can't bear being startled himself. Oh, there they are!'
+
+As she spoke the four figures appeared at a turn in the drive. Nan and
+Vallie in the pretty pink frocks, which no longer made me feel
+discontented with my own, as nothing could be prettier, I was quite
+firmly convinced, than grandmamma's beautiful work, which Sharley had
+already admired in her own pleasant and hearty way.
+
+We two got out of the pony-carriage, leaving grandmamma to be driven up
+to the house by the groom, the little girls saying that their mother was
+waiting for her on the lawn in front.
+
+I had never seen the boys before. Percival seemed to me quite big,
+though he was one year younger than Sharley and smaller for his age.
+Quintin was more like Nan, slow and solemn and rather fat, so his
+nickname of Quick certainly didn't suit him very well. But they were
+both very nice and kind to me. I am quite sure Sharley had talked to
+them well about it before I came, though it was easy to see that when
+Pert was not on his best behaviour he was very fond of playing tricks.
+
+I felt very happy, and not at all strange or frightened as I walked
+along between Sharley and Val, each holding one of my hands and
+chattering away about all we were going to do, though I had a queer,
+rather nice feeling as if I must be in a dream, it all seemed so pretty
+and wonderful.
+
+And indeed many people, far better able to judge of such things than I,
+think that Moor Court is one of the loveliest places in England. I did
+not see much of the inside of the house that day, though I learnt to
+know it well afterwards. It was very old and very large, and everything
+about it seemed to me quite perfect. But on this day we amused ourselves
+almost altogether out of doors.
+
+[Illustration: Grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily.--p. 67.]
+
+The children had already done a good deal to the arbour where we were to
+have tea; but grandmamma's chair was still waiting to be decorated, so
+the next hour was spent very happily in gathering branches of ivy and
+other pretty green things to twine about it, with here and there a bunch
+of flowers, which Mrs. Nestor had told the gardener we were to have.
+
+Vallie was very anxious to make a wreath for grandmamma, but though I
+thought it a very nice idea, I was afraid it would look rather funny,
+and when Sharley reminded us that wreaths couldn't be worn very well
+above a bonnet, we quite gave it up.
+
+But we did make the table look very pretty, and at last everything was
+ready, except the tea itself and the hot cakes, which of course the
+servants would bring at the very end.
+
+By the time we had finished it was nearly four o'clock, and we were not
+to have tea till half-past, so there was time for a nice game of
+hide-and-seek among the trees. I don't think I ever ran so fast or
+laughed so much in my life. They were all such good-natured children,
+even if they did have little quarrels they were soon over, and then I
+think they were all especially kind to me. I suppose they were sorry for
+me in some ways that did not come into my own mind at all.
+
+Then we all went to the house to be made tidy for tea, and in spite of
+what grandmamma had said about not minding if my frock was dirtied I was
+very pleased to find that it was perfectly clean.
+
+Grandmamma and Mrs. Nestor were waiting for us in the drawing-room; and
+we all went back to the arbour together, Sharley walking first with
+grandmamma, which was quite right, as the plan about tea had been all
+her own.
+
+Grandmamma _was_ pleased. I think she liked to see how fond these
+children had already got to be of her, though perhaps it would have been
+as well if Quick had not informed us in the middle of tea that he liked
+her a great, great deal better than his real grandmamma, whose nose was
+very big and her hair quite black.
+
+'But she's very kind to us too,' said Sharley, 'only I don't think she
+cares much for little boys.'
+
+'Nor for tomboys either,' said Pert, who did love teasing Sharley
+whenever he had a chance.
+
+'Jerry's her favourite,' said Nan.
+
+'And I think he deserves to be,' said her mother.
+
+'I wish he was here to-day, I know that,' said Sharley. 'It's such a
+long time to the holidays, and it won't be so nice this year when they
+do come, as most likely a boy's coming with Jerry.'
+
+'Two boys,' corrected Pert, 'their name's Vandeleur, and they're his
+greatest friends.'
+
+'Vandeleur?' said grandmamma. 'I wonder if----' and then she stopped. 'I
+have relations of that name,' she said, 'but I don't suppose they belong
+to the same family.'
+
+'It is not a common name,' said Mrs. Nestor. 'But these boys are, I
+believe, orphans. Both their father and mother are dead, are they not,
+Sharley? Sharley knows the most about them,' she went on, 'for Gerard
+and she write long letters to each other always, and she hears all about
+his school friends and everything he is interested in.'
+
+'Yes,' said Sharley, 'they are orphans. They have an old aunt or some
+relation who takes care of them. But I think they are rather lonely.
+They often spend all their holidays at school--that was why Jerry
+thought it would be nice to invite them here. I daresay it will be very
+nice for _them_, but _I_ think it will quite spoil the holidays for
+_us_.'
+
+'Come, Sharley,' said her mother, 'you must not be selfish.'
+
+'What are the boys' Christian names?' asked grandmamma.
+
+'Harry and Lindsay,' Sharley replied.
+
+Grandmamma shook her head.
+
+'No,' she said, as if thinking aloud, 'I never heard those names in the
+branch of the Vandeleurs I am connected with.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+'WAVING VIEW'
+
+
+I was only eight years old at the time we made the acquaintance of the
+family at Moor Court. It may seem strange and unlikely that I should
+remember so clearly all that happened when we first got to know them,
+but even though I was so young at the time I _do_ recollect all about it
+very well.
+
+For it was so new to me that it made a great impression.
+
+Till then I had never had any real companions; as I have said already, I
+had scarcely ever had a meal out of our own house. It was like the
+opening of a new world to me.
+
+But I have asked grandmamma about a few things which she remembers more
+exactly than I do. Especially about the Vandeleur boys, I mean about
+what was said of them. But for things that happened afterwards I daresay
+I should never have thought of this again, though grandmamma did not
+forget about it. She told me over quite lately everything that had
+passed at that birthday tea.
+
+The months, and indeed the years that followed that first happy day at
+Moor Court seem to me now, on looking back upon them, a good deal mixed
+up together--till, that is to say, a change, a melancholy one for me,
+came over my happy friendship with the Nestor children.
+
+This change, however, did not come for fully three years, and these
+three years were very bright and sunny ones. Sharley and her sisters
+continued all that time to be my grandmamma's pupils--winter and summer,
+all the year round, except for some weeks of holiday at Christmas, and a
+rather longer time in the autumn, when the Nestors generally went to the
+sea-side for a change; unless the weather was terribly bad or stormy,
+twice a week they either walked over with a maid, or the governess-cart
+drawn by the fat pony made its appearance at the end of our path.
+Sometimes the little groom went on into the village if there were any
+messages, sometimes if it was cold he drove as far as the farm at the
+foot of the hill, where it was arranged that he could 'put up' for an
+hour or two, sometimes in warm summer days the pony-cart just waited
+where it was.
+
+Often, once a fortnight or so at least, in the fine season, I made one
+of the party on the little girls' return home. How we all managed to
+squeeze into the cart, or how old Bunch managed to take us all home
+without coming to grief on the way, I am sure I can't say.
+
+I only know we _did_ manage it, and so did he. For he is still alive and
+well, and no doubt 'ready to tell the story,' if he could speak.
+
+We never seemed to be ill in those days. The Nestor children were no
+doubt very strong, and I grew much stronger. Then Middlemoor is such a
+splendidly healthy place.
+
+I have some misty recollections of Nan and Vallie having the measles,
+and a doubt arising as to whether I had not got it too. But if it was
+measles it did not seem worse than a cold, and we were soon all out and
+about again, as merry as ever.
+
+And grandmamma seemed to grow younger during those years. Her mind was
+more at rest for the time, for the steady payment she received for the
+girls' French lessons made all the difference in our little income,
+between being comfortable, with a small extra in case of need, and
+being only _just_ able to make both ends meet with a great deal of
+tugging. And grandmamma was happy about taking the money, for it was
+well earned; Sharley and the others made such good progress in French
+and after a little while in German also, even though Nan was by nature
+rather slow and Vallie dreadfully flighty, and not at all good at giving
+her attention.
+
+But she _was_ so sweet! I never saw any one so sweet as Vallie, when she
+had been found fault with and was sorry; the tears used to come up into
+her big brown eyes very slowly and stay there, making them look like
+velvety pansies with dewdrops in them.
+
+Somehow Sharley always seemed the _most_ my friend, though she was a
+good deal older. Perhaps it was through having known her the first, and
+partly, I daresay, because in _some_ ways I was old for my age.
+
+The big brother Gerard came home for his holidays three times a year. He
+was a very nice boy, I am sure, but I did not get to know him well, and
+I had rather a grudge at him. For when he was at Moor Court I seemed to
+see so much less of Sharley. It wasn't her fault. She was not a
+changeable girl at all, but Jerry had always been accustomed to having
+her a great deal with him in his holidays, as she took pains to explain
+to me. So of course if she had given him up for me she _would_ have been
+changeable.
+
+She did her best, I will say that for her. She told Gerard all about me,
+and he was very nice to me. But it was in rather a big boy way, which I
+did not understand. I thought he was treating me like a baby when _he_
+only meant to be kind and brotherly. I remember one day being so
+offended at his lifting me over a stile, that it was all I could do not
+to burst into tears!
+
+So it came to be the way among us, without anything being actually said
+about it, that during Jerry's holidays I was mostly with the four
+others--Nan and Vallie and the two younger boys.
+
+And I daresay it was a good thing for me. For none of them were at all
+old for their age; they were just hearty, healthy, regular _children_,
+living in the present and very happy in it. And if I had been altogether
+with the older ones I might have grown more and more 'old-fashioned.'
+For Gerard was a very serious and thoughtful boy, and Sharley, though in
+outside ways she seemed rather wild and hoydenish, was really very
+clever and very wise, to be only the age she was. I never quite took in
+that side of her character till I saw her with Jerry--she seemed quite
+transformed.
+
+One thing came to pass, however, which was a great pleasure to the two
+people it chiefly concerned and to Sharley. As for me, I don't think I
+gave much attention to it, and I am not sure that if it had at all
+interfered with my own life I should not have been rather jealous!
+
+This was a close friendship between Gerard Nestor and grandmamma.
+
+And it is necessary to speak about it because it was the beginning of
+things which brought about great changes.
+
+Grandmamma loved boys and she was one of those women that are well
+fitted to manage them. She used to say that till she got _me_, she had
+never had anything to do with _girls_. For her own children were both
+boys--papa was the elder, and the other was a dear boy who died when he
+was only sixteen, and whom of course I had never seen, though grandmamma
+liked me to speak of him as 'Uncle Guy.' Then, too, she had had some
+charge of her nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.
+
+Her friendship with Jerry came about by his reading French and German
+with her in the holidays. He had never been out of England and he was
+anxious to improve his 'foreign languages,' as he was backward in them,
+besides having a very bad accent indeed.
+
+Granny has often said she never had so attentive a pupil, and it was in
+talking with him--for 'conversation' was a very important part of her
+teaching--that she got to know so much of Gerard, and he so much of her.
+
+She used to tell him stories of her own boys, Paul--Paul was papa--and
+Guy, in French, and he had to answer questions about the stories to show
+that he had understood her. And in these stories the name of Cosmo
+Vandeleur came to be mentioned.
+
+The first time or so he heard it I don't think Jerry noticed it. But one
+day it struck him just as it had struck grandmamma that first day--the
+birthday-tea day--at Moor Court.
+
+'Vandeleur,' said Jerry--it was one day when he had come over for his
+lesson, and as it was raining and I could not go out, I was sitting in
+the window making a cloak or something for my doll. 'Vandeleur,' he
+repeated. 'I wonder, Mrs. Wingfield, if your nephew is any relation to
+some boys at my school. They are great chums of mine--they were to have
+come home with me for the summer holidays'--it was the Christmas
+holidays now,--'but their relations had settled something else for them
+and wouldn't let them come. I think their relations must be rather
+horrid.'
+
+'I remember Sharley--I think it was Sharley--speaking of them,' said
+grandmamma. 'They are orphans, are they not?'
+
+'Yes,' said Gerard. 'They've got guardians--one of them is quite an old
+woman. Her name is Lady Bridget Woodstone. They don't care very much for
+her. I think she must be very crabbed.'
+
+'I do not think they can be related to my nephew,' said grandmamma. 'I
+never heard of any orphan boys in his family, and I never heard of Lady
+Bridget Woodstone. But Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur is only my nephew, because
+his mother was my husband's sister--so of course he _may_ have relations
+I know nothing of. He always seemed to me very near when he was a boy,
+because he was so often with us.'
+
+She sighed a little as she finished speaking. Thinking of Mr. Vandeleur
+made her sad. It did seem so strange that he had never written all these
+years.
+
+And Jerry was very quick as well as thoughtful. He saw that for some
+reason the mention of the name made her sad, so he said no more about
+the Vandeleur boys. Long afterwards he told us that when he went back to
+school he did ask Harry and Lindsay Vandeleur if they had any relation
+called Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur, but at that time they told him they did not
+know. They were quite under the care of old Lady Bridget, and she was
+not a bit like granny. She was the sort of old lady who treats children
+as if they had no sense at all; she never told the boys anything about
+themselves or their family, and when they spent the holidays with her,
+she always had a tutor for them--the strictest she could find, so that
+they almost liked better to stay on at school.
+
+The three years I have been writing about must have passed quickly to
+grandmamma. They were so peaceful, and after we got to know the Nestors,
+much less lonely. And grandmamma says that it is quite wonderful how
+fast time goes once one begins to grow old. She does not seem to mind
+it. She is so very good--I cannot help saying this, for my own story
+would not be true if I did not keep saying _how_ good she is.
+But I must take care not to let her see the places where I say it.
+She loves me as dearly as she can, I know--and others beside me.
+But still I try not to be selfish and to remember that when the
+dreadful--dreadful-for-_me_--day comes that she must leave me, it will
+only for _her_ be the going where she must often, often have longed to
+be--the country 'across the river,' where her very dearest have been
+watching for her for so long.
+
+To me those three years seem like one bright summer. Of course we had
+winters in them too, but there is a feeling of sunshine all over them.
+And, actually speaking, those winters were very mild ones--nothing like
+the occasional severe ones, of another of which I shall soon have to
+tell.
+
+I was so well too--growing so strong--stronger by far than grandmamma
+had ever hoped to see me. And as I grew strong I seemed to take in the
+delightfulness of it, though as a very little girl I had not often
+_complained_ of feeling weak and tired, for I did not understand the
+difference.
+
+Now I must tell about the change that came to the Nestors--a sad change
+for me, for though at first it seemed worse for them, in the end I
+really think it brought more trouble to granny and me than to our dear
+friends themselves.
+
+It was one day in the autumn, early in October I think, that the first
+beginning of the cloud came. Gerard had not long been back at school and
+we were just settling down into our regular ways again.
+
+'The girls are late this morning,' said grandmamma. 'You see nothing of
+them from your watch-tower, do you, Helena?'
+
+Granny always called the window-seat in our tiny drawing-room my
+'watch-tower.' I had very long sight and I had found out that there was
+a bit of the road from Moor Court where I could see the pony-cart
+passing, like a little dark speck, before it got hidden again among the
+trees. After that open bit I could not see it again at all till it was
+quite close to our own road, as we called it--I mean the steep bit of
+rough cart-track leading to our little garden-gate.
+
+I was already crouched up in my pet place, when grandmamma called out to
+me. She was in the dining-room, but the doors were open.
+
+'No, grandmamma,' I replied. 'I don't see them at all. And I am sure
+they haven't passed Waving View in the last quarter-of-an-hour, for I
+have been here all that time.'
+
+'Waving View,' I must explain, was the name we had given to the short
+stretch of road I have just spoken of, because we used to wave
+handkerchiefs to each other--I at my watch-tower and Sharley from the
+pony-cart, at that point.
+
+Grandmamma came into the drawing-room a moment or two after that and
+stood behind me, looking out at the window.
+
+[Illustration: 'I do wonder why they are so late.'--P. 82.]
+
+'Not that I could see them coming,' she said, 'till they are up the hill
+and close to us. But I do wonder why they are so late--half an hour
+late,' and she glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. 'I hope
+there is nothing the matter.'
+
+I looked at her as she said that, for I felt rather surprised. It was
+never granny's way to expect trouble before it comes. I saw that her
+face was rather anxious. But just as I was going to speak, to say some
+little word about its not being likely that anything was wrong, I gave
+one other glance towards Waving View. This time I was not disappointed.
+
+'Oh, granny,' I exclaimed, 'there they are! I am sure it is them--I know
+the way they jog along so well--only, grandmamma, they are not waving?'
+
+And I think the anxious look must have come into my own face, for I
+remember saying, almost in a whisper, 'I do hope there is nothing the
+matter'--granny's very words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES
+
+
+Grandmamma was the one to reassure me.
+
+'I scarcely think there can be anything wrong, as they are coming,' she
+said. 'You did not wave to them, either?'
+
+'No,' I said, 'I _did_ wave, but I got tired of it. And it's always they
+who do it first. You see there's no use doing it except at that place.'
+
+'Well, they will be here directly, and then I must give them a little
+scolding for being so unpunctual,' said grandmamma, cheerfully.
+
+But that little scolding was never given.
+
+When the governess-cart stopped at our path there were only two figures
+in it--no, three, I should say, for there was the groom, and the two
+others were Nan and Vallie--Sharley was not there.
+
+I ran out to meet them.
+
+'Is Sharley ill?' I called out before I got to them.
+
+Nan shook her head.
+
+'No,' she was beginning, but Vallie, who was much quicker, took the
+words out of her mouth--that was a way of Vallie's, and sometimes it
+used to make Nan rather vexed. But this morning she did not seem to
+notice it; she just shut up her lips again and stood silent with a very
+grave expression, while Vallie hurried on--
+
+'Sharley's not ill, but mother kept her at home, and we're late because
+we went first to the telegraph office at Yukes'--Yukes is a _very_ tiny
+village half a mile on the other side of Moor Court, where there is a
+telegraph office. 'Father's ill, Helena, and I'm afraid he's very ill,
+for as soon as Dr. Cobbe saw him this morning he said he must telegraph
+for another doctor to London.'
+
+'Oh, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I am so sorry,' and turning round at the sound
+of footsteps behind me I saw grandmamma, who had followed me out of the
+house. 'Granny,' I said, 'there _is_ something the matter. Their father
+is very ill,' and I repeated what Vallie had just said.
+
+'I am very grieved to hear it,' said grandmamma. Afterwards she told me
+she had had a sort of presentiment that something was the matter. 'I am
+so sorry for your mother,' she went on. 'I wonder if I can be of use to
+her in any way.'
+
+Then Nan spoke, in her slow but very exact way.
+
+'Mother said,' she began, 'would you come to be with her this afternoon
+late, when the London doctor comes? She will send the brougham and it
+will bring you back again, if you would be so very kind. Mother is so
+afraid what the London doctor will say,' and poor Nan looked as if it
+was very difficult for her not to cry.
+
+'Certainly, I will come,' said grandmamma at once. 'Ask Mrs. Nestor to
+send for me as soon as you get home if she would like to have me. I
+suppose--' she went on, hesitating a little, 'you don't know what is the
+matter with your father?'
+
+'It is a sort of a cold that's got very bad,' said Vallie, 'it hurts him
+to breathe, and in the night he was nearly choking.'
+
+Granny looked grave at this. She knew that Mr. Nestor had not been
+strong for some time, and he was a very active man, who looked after
+everything on his property himself, and hunted a good deal, and thought
+nothing about taking care of himself. He was a nice kind man, and all
+his people were very fond of him.
+
+But she tried to cheer up the little girls and gave them their lesson as
+usual. It was much better to do so than to let them feel too unhappy.
+And I tried to be very kind and bright too--I saw that grandmamma wanted
+me to be the same way to them that she was.
+
+But after they were gone she spoke to me pretty openly about her fears
+for Mr. Nestor.
+
+'Dr. Cobbe would not have sent for a London doctor without good cause,'
+she said. 'All will depend on his opinion. It is possible that I may
+have to stay all night, Helena dear. You will not mind if I do?'
+
+I _did_ mind, very much. But I tried to say I wouldn't. Still, I felt
+pretty miserable when the Moor Court carriage came to fetch grandmamma,
+and she drove away, leaving me for the first time in my life, or rather
+the first time I could remember, alone with Kezia.
+
+Kezia was very kind. She offered me to come into the kitchen and make
+cakes. But I was past eleven now--that is very different from being only
+eight. I did not care much for making cakes--I never have cared about
+cooking as some girls do, though I know it is a very good thing to
+understand about it, and grandmamma says I am to go through a regular
+course of it when I get to be seventeen or eighteen. But I knew Kezia's
+cakes were much better than any I could make, so I thanked her, but said
+no--I would rather read or sew.
+
+I had my tea all alone in the dining-room. Kezia was always so
+respectful about that sort of thing. Though she had been a nurse when I
+was only a tiny baby, she never forgot, as some old servants do, to
+treat me quite like a young lady, now I was growing older. She brought
+in my tea and set it all out just as carefully as when grandmamma was
+there, even more carefully in some ways, for she had made some little
+scones that I was very fond of, and she had got out some strawberry jam.
+
+But I could not help feeling melancholy. I know it is wrong to believe
+in presentiments, or at least to think much about them, though
+_sometimes_ even very wise people like grandmamma cannot help believing
+in them a little. But I really do think that there are times in one's
+life when a sort of sadness about the future does seem _meant_.
+
+And I had been so happy for so long. And troubles must come.
+
+I said that over to myself as I sat alone after tea, and then all of a
+sudden it struck me that I was very selfish. This trouble was far, far
+worse for the Nestors than for me. Possibly by this time the London
+doctor had had to tell them that their father would never get better,
+and here was I thinking more, I am afraid, of the dulness of being one
+night without dear granny than of the sorrow that was perhaps coming
+over Sharley and the others of being without their father for always.
+
+For I scarcely think my 'presentiments' would have troubled me much
+except for the being alone and missing granny so.
+
+I made up my mind to be sensible and not fanciful. I got out what I
+called my 'secret work,' which was at that time a footstool I was
+embroidering for grandmamma's next birthday, and I did a good bit of it.
+That made me feel rather better, and when my bedtime came it was nice to
+think I had nothing to do but to go to sleep and stay asleep to make
+to-morrow morning come quickly.
+
+I fell asleep almost at once. But when I woke rather with a start--and I
+could not tell what had awakened me--it was still quite, quite dark,
+certainly not to-morrow morning.
+
+'Oh, dear!' I thought, 'what a bother! Here I am as wide awake as
+anything, and I so seldom wake at all. Just this night when I wanted to
+sleep straight through.'
+
+I lay still. Suddenly I heard some faint sounds. Some one was moving
+about downstairs. Could it be Kezia up still? It must be very
+late--quite the middle of the night, I fancied.
+
+The sounds went on--doors shutting softly, then a slight creak on the
+stairs, as if some one were coming up slowly. I was not exactly
+frightened. I never thought of burglars--I don't think there has been a
+burglary at Middlemoor within the memory of man--but my heart did beat
+rather faster than usual and I listened, straining my ears and scarcely
+daring to breathe.
+
+Then at last the steps stopped at my door, and some one began to turn
+the handle. I _almost_ screamed. But--in one instant came the dear
+voice--
+
+'Is my darling awake?' so gently, it was scarcely above a whisper.
+
+'Oh, granny, dear, dear granny, is it you?' I said, and every bit of me,
+heart and ears and everything, seemed to give one throb of delight. I
+shall never forget it. It was like the day I ran into her arms down the
+steep garden-path.
+
+'Did I startle you?' she went on. 'Generally you sleep so soundly that I
+hoped I would not awake you.'
+
+'I was awake, dear grandmamma,' I said, 'and oh, I am so glad you have
+come home.'
+
+I clung to her as if I would never let her go, and then she told me the
+news from Moor Court. The London doctor had spoken gravely, but still
+hopefully. With great care, the greatest care, he trusted Mr. Nestor
+would quite recover.
+
+'So I came home to my little girl,' said grandmamma, 'though I have
+promised poor Mrs. Nestor to go to her again to-morrow.'
+
+'I don't mind anything if you are here at night,' I said, with a sigh of
+comfort.
+
+And then she kissed me again and I turned round and was asleep in five
+minutes, and when I woke the next time it _was_ morning; the sunshine
+was streaming in at the window.
+
+There were some weeks after that of a good deal of anxiety about Mr.
+Nestor, though he went on pretty well. Grandmamma went over every two or
+three days, just to cheer Mrs. Nestor a little--not that there was
+really anything to do, for they had trained nurses, and everything money
+could get. The girls went on with their lessons as usual, which was of
+course much better for them. But in those few weeks Sharley almost
+seemed to grow into a woman.
+
+I felt rather 'left behind' by her, for I was only eleven, and as soon
+as the first great anxiety about Mr. Nestor was over I did not think
+very much more about it. Nor did Nan and Vallie. We were quite satisfied
+that he would soon be well again, and that everything would go on as
+usual. Only Sharley looked grave.
+
+At last the blow fell. It was a very bad blow to me, and in one
+way--which, however, I did not understand till some time later--even
+worse to grandmamma, though she said nothing to hint at such a thing in
+the least.
+
+And it was a blow to the Nestor children, for they loved their home and
+their life dearly, and had no wish for any change.
+
+This was it. They were all to go abroad almost immediately, for the
+whole winter at any rate. The doctors were perfectly certain that it was
+necessary for Mr. Nestor, and he would not hear of going alone, and Mrs.
+Nestor could not bear the idea of a separation from her children.
+Besides--they were very rich, there were no difficulties in the way of
+their travelling most comfortably, and having everything they could want
+wherever they went to.
+
+To me it was the greatest trouble I had ever known--and I really do
+think the little girls--Sharley too--minded it more on my account than
+on any other.
+
+But it had to be.
+
+Almost before we had quite taken in that it was really going to be, they
+were off--everything packed up, a courier engaged--rooms secured at the
+best hotel in the place they were going to--for all these things can be
+done in no time when people have lots of money, grandmamma said--and
+they were gone! Moor Court shut up and deserted, except for the few
+servants left in charge, to keep it clean and in good order.
+
+I only went there once all that winter, and I never went again. I could
+not bear it. For in among the trees where we played I came upon the
+traces of our last paper-chase, and passing the side of the house it was
+even worse. For the schoolrooms and play-room were in that wing, and
+above them the nurseries, where Vallie used to rub her little nose
+against the panes when she was shut up with one of her bad colds. Some
+cleaning was going on, for it was like Longfellow's poem exactly--
+
+  'I saw the nursery windows
+    Wide open to the air,
+  But the faces of the children,
+    They were no longer there.'
+
+I just squeezed grandmamma's hand without speaking, and we turned away.
+
+It _is_ true that troubles do not often come alone. That winter was one
+of the very severe ones I have spoken of, that come now and then in that
+part of Middleshire.
+
+For the Nestors' sake it made us all the more glad that they were safely
+away from weather which, in his delicate state, would very probably have
+killed their father. I think this was our very first thought when the
+snow began to fall, only two or three weeks after they left, and went on
+falling till the roads were almost impassable, and remained lying for I
+am afraid to say how long, so intense was the frost that set in.
+
+I thought it rather good fun just at the beginning, and wished I could
+learn to skate. Grandmamma did not seem to care about my doing so, which
+I was rather surprised at, as she had often told me stories of how fond
+she was of skating when she was young, and how clever papa and Uncle Guy
+were at it.
+
+She said I had no one to teach me, and when I told her that I was sure
+Tom Linden, a nephew of the vicar's who was staying with his uncle and
+aunt just then, would help me, she found some other objection. Tom was a
+very stupid, very good-natured boy. I had got to know him a little at
+the Nestors. He was slow and heavy and rather fat. I tried to make
+granny laugh by saying he would be a good buffer to fall upon. I saw she
+was looking grave, and I felt a little cross at her not wanting me to
+skate, and I persisted about it.
+
+'Do let me, grandmamma,' I said. 'I can order a pair of skates at
+Barridge's. They don't keep the best kind in stock, but I know they can
+get them.'
+
+'No, my dear,' said grandmamma at last, very decidedly. 'I am not at all
+sure that it would be nice for you--it would have been different if the
+Nestors had been here. And besides, there are several things you need to
+have bought for you much more than skates. You must have extra warm
+clothing this winter.'
+
+She did not say right out that she did not know where the money was to
+come from for my wants--as for her own, when did the darling ever think
+of _them_?--but she gave a little sigh, and the thought did come into my
+head for a moment--was grandmamma troubled about money? But it did not
+stay there. We had been so comfortable the last few years that I had
+really thought less about being poor than when I was quite little.
+
+And other things made me forget about it. For a very few days after
+that, most unfortunately, I got ill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TWO LETTERS
+
+
+It was only a bad cold. Except for having to stay in the house, I would
+not have minded it very much, for after the first few days, when I was
+feverish and miserable, I did not feel very bad. And like a child, I
+thought every day that I should be all right the next.
+
+I daresay I should have got over it much quicker if the weather had not
+been so severe. But it was really awfully cold. Even my own sense told
+me it would be mad to think of going out. So I got fidgety and
+discontented, and made myself look worse than I really was.
+
+And for the very first time in my life there seemed to come a little
+cloud, a little coldness, between dear grandmamma and me. Speaking about
+it since then, _she_ says it was not all my fault, but _I_ think it was.
+I was selfish and thoughtless. She was dull and low-spirited, and I had
+never seen her like that before. And I did not know all the reasons
+there were for her being so, and I felt a kind of irritation at it. Even
+when she tried, as she often and often did, to throw it off and cheer me
+up in some little way by telling me stories, or proposing some new game,
+or new fancy-work, I would not meet her half-way, but would answer
+pettishly that I was tired of all those things. And I was vexed at
+several little changes in our way of living. All that winter we sat in
+the dining-room, and never had a fire in the drawing-room, and our food
+was plainer than I ever remembered it. Granny used to have special
+things for me--beef-tea and beaten-up eggs and port-wine--but I hated
+having them all alone and seeing her eating scarcely anything.
+
+'I don't want these messy things as if I was really ill,' I said. 'Why
+don't we have nice little dinners and teas as we used?'
+
+Grandmamma never answered these questions plainly; she would make some
+little excuse about not feeling hungry in frosty weather, or that the
+tradespeople did not like sending often. But once or twice I caught her
+looking at me when she did not know I saw her, and then there was
+something in her eyes which made me think I was a horridly selfish
+child. And yet I did not _mean_ to be. I really did not understand, and
+it was rather trying to be cooped up for so long, in a room scarcely
+bigger than a cupboard, after my free open life of the last three years
+or so.
+
+Dr. Cobbe came once or twice at the beginning of my cold and looked
+rather grave. Then he did not come again for two or three weeks--I think
+he had told grandmamma to let him know if I got worse.
+
+And one day when I had really made myself feverish by my fidgety
+grumbling, and then being sorry and crying, which brought on a fit of
+coughing, grandmamma got so unhappy that she tucked me up on the sofa by
+the fire, and went off herself, though it was late in the afternoon, to
+fetch him herself. She would not let Kezia go because she wanted to
+speak to him alone; I did not know it at the time, but I remember waking
+up and hearing voices near me, and there were the doctor and grandmamma.
+She was in her indoors dress just as usual, for me not to guess she had
+been out.
+
+I sat up, feeling much the better for my sleep. Dr. Cobbe laughed and
+joked--that was his way--he listened to my breathing and pommelled me
+and told me I was a little humbug. Then he went off into Kezia's
+kitchen, where there _had_ to be a tiny fire, with grandmamma, and a few
+minutes later I heard him saying good-bye.
+
+Grandmamma came back to me looking happier than for some time past. The
+doctor, she has told me since, really did assure her that there was
+nothing serious the matter with me, that I was a growing child and must
+be well fed and kept cheerful, as I was inclined to be nervous and was
+not exactly robust.
+
+And the relief to grandmamma was great. That evening she was more like
+her old self than she had been for long, even though I daresay she was
+awake half the night thinking over the doctor's advice, and wondering
+what more she _could_ do to get enough money to give me all I needed.
+
+For some of her money-matters had gone wrong. That I did not know till
+long afterwards. It was just about the time of Mr. Nestor's illness, and
+it was not till the Moor Court family had left that she found out the
+worst of it--that for two or three years _at least_ we should be thirty
+or forty pounds a year poorer than we had been.
+
+It _was_ hard on her--coming at the very same time as the extra money
+for the lessons left off! And the severe winter and my cold all added to
+it. It even made it more difficult for her to hear of other pupils, or
+to get any orders for her beautiful fancy-work. No visitors would come
+to Middlemoor _this_ winter, though when it was mild they sometimes did.
+
+Still, from the day of Dr. Cobbe's visit things improved a little--for
+the time at least. And in the end it was a good thing that grandmamma
+was not tempted to try her eyes with any embroidery again, as she really
+might have made herself blind. It had been such a blessing that she did
+not need to do it during the years she gave lessons to Sharley and her
+sisters.
+
+I went on getting better pretty steadily, especially once I was allowed
+to go out a little, though, as it was a very cold spring, it was only
+for some time _very_ little, just an hour or so in the best part of the
+day. And grandmamma followed Dr. Cobbe's advice, though I never shall
+understand how she managed to do so. She was so determined to be
+cheerful that when I look back upon it now it almost makes me cry. I had
+all the nourishing things to eat that it was possible to get, and how
+thoughtless and ungrateful I was! My appetite was not very good, and I
+remember actually grumbling at having to take beef-tea, and beaten-up
+eggs, and things like that at odd times. I scarcely like to say it, but
+in my heart I do not believe grandmamma had enough to eat that winter.
+
+About Easter--or rather at the time for the big school Easter holidays,
+which does not always match real Easter--we had a pleasant surprise. At
+least it was a pleasant surprise for grandmamma--I don't know that I
+cared about it particularly, and I certainly little thought what would
+come of it!
+
+One afternoon Gerard Nestor walked in.
+
+Granny's face quite lighted up, and for a moment or two I felt very
+excited.
+
+'Have you all come home?' I exclaimed. 'I haven't had a letter from
+Sharley for ever so long--perhaps--perhaps she meant to surprise me,' I
+had been going to say, but something in Jerry's face stopped me. He
+looked rather grave; not that he was ever anything but quiet.
+
+'No,' he said, 'I only wish they _were_ all back, or likely to come. I'm
+afraid there's no chance of it. The doctors out there won't hear of it
+this year at all. Just when father was hoping to arrange for coming back
+soon, they found out something or other unsatisfactory about him, and
+now it is settled that he must stay out of England another whole year at
+least. They are speaking of Algeria or Egypt for next winter.'
+
+My face fell. I was on the point of crying. Gerard looked very
+sympathising.
+
+'I did not myself mind it so much till I came down here,' he said. 'But
+it is so lonely and dull at Moor Court. I hope you will let me come here
+a great deal, Mrs. Wingfield. I mean to work hard at my foreign
+languages these holidays--it will give me something to do. You see it
+wasn't worth while my going out to Hyeres for only three weeks, and I
+hoped even they might be coming back. So I asked to come down here. I
+didn't think it could be so dull.'
+
+'You are all alone at home?' said grandmamma. 'Yes, it must be very
+lonely. I shall be delighted to read with you as much as you like. I am
+not very busy.'
+
+'Thank you,' said Gerard. 'Well, I only hope you won't have too much of
+me. May I stay to tea to-day?'
+
+'Certainly,' said grandmamma. But I noticed--I don't think Gerard
+did--that her face had grown rather anxious-looking as he spoke. 'If
+you like,' she went on, 'we can glance over your books, some of them are
+still here, and settle on a little work at once.'
+
+'All right,' said he. But then he added, rather abruptly, 'You are not
+looking well, Mrs. Wingfield? I think you have got thinner. And Helena
+looks rather white, though she has not grown much.'
+
+I felt vexed at his saying I had not grown much.
+
+'It's no wonder I am white,' I said in a surly tone. 'I have been mewed
+up in the house almost ever since Sharley and all of them went away.'
+
+And then grandmamma explained about my having been ill.
+
+'I'm very sorry,' said Jerry, 'but you look worse than Helena, Mrs.
+Wingfield.'
+
+I felt crosser and crosser. I fancied he meant to reproach me with
+grandmamma's looking ill, even though it made me uneasy too. I glanced
+at her--a faint pink flush had come over her face at his words.
+
+'_I_ don't think granny looks ill at all,' I said.
+
+'No, indeed, I am very well,' she said, with a smile.
+
+Gerard said no more, but I know he thought me a selfish spoilt child.
+And from that moment he set himself to watch grandmamma and to find out
+if anything was really the matter.
+
+He _did_ find out, and that pretty quickly, I fancy, that we were much
+poorer. But it was very difficult for him to do anything to help
+grandmamma. She was so dignified, and in some ways reserved. She got a
+letter from Mrs. Nestor a few days later, thanking her for reading with
+Jerry again, and saying that of course the lessons must be arranged
+about as before. And it vexed her a very little. (She has told me about
+it since.) Perhaps she was feeling unusually sensitive and depressed
+just then. But however that may have been, she wrote a letter to Mrs.
+Nestor, which made her really _afraid_ of offering to pay. It was not as
+if there was time for a good many lessons, granny wrote--would not Mrs.
+Nestor let her render this very small service as a friend?
+
+And Jerry did not know what he _could_ do. It was not the season for
+game, except rabbits--and he did send rabbits two or three times--and I
+know now that he scarcely dared to stay to tea, or _not_ to stay, for if
+he refused granny seemed hurt.
+
+On the whole, nice as he was, it was almost a relief when he went away
+back to school.
+
+Still things were not so bad as in winter. I was really all right
+again, and a little money come in to grandmamma about May or June that
+she had not dared to hope for. We got on pretty well that summer.
+
+None of the Nestors came to Moor Court at all. Gerard joined them for
+the long holidays in Switzerland. Mrs. Nestor wrote now and then to
+granny, and Sharley to me, but of course there was not the least hint of
+what Gerard had told them. I think they believed and hoped he had
+exaggerated it--he was the sort of boy to fancy things worse than they
+were if he cared about people, I think.
+
+And so it got on to be the early autumn again. I think it was about the
+middle of September when the first beginning of the great change in our
+lives came.
+
+It was cold already, and the weather prophets were talking of another
+severe winter. Grandmamma watched the signs of it anxiously. She kept
+comparing it with the same time last year till I got quite tired of the
+subject.
+
+'Really, grandmamma,' I said one morning, 'what does it matter? If it is
+very cold we must have big fires and keep ourselves warm. And one thing
+I know--I am not going to be shut up again like last winter. I am going
+to get skates and have some fun as soon as ever the frost comes.'
+
+I said it half jokingly, but still I was ready to be cross too. I had
+not improved in some ways since I was ill. I was less thoughtful for
+grandmamma and quite annoyed if she did not do exactly what I wanted, or
+if she seemed interested in anything but me. In short, I was very
+spoilt.
+
+She did not answer me about the skates, for at that moment Kezia brought
+in the letters. It was not by any means every morning that we got any,
+and it was always rather an excitement when we saw the postman turning
+up our path.
+
+That morning there were two letters. One was for me from Sharley. I knew
+at once it was from her by the foreign stamp and the thin paper
+envelope, even before I looked at the writing. I was so pleased that I
+rushed off with it to my favourite window-seat, without noticing
+grandmamma, who had quietly taken her own letter from the little tray
+Kezia handed it to her on and was examining it in a half-puzzled way. I
+remembered afterwards catching a glimpse of the expression on her face,
+but at the moment I gave no thought to it.
+
+There was nothing _very_ particular in Sharley's letter. It was very
+affectionate--full of longings to be coming home again, even though she
+allowed that their present life was very bright and interesting. I was
+just laughing at a description of Pert and Quick going to market on
+their own account, and how they bargained with the old peasant women,
+when a slight sound--_was_ it a sound or only a sort of feeling in the
+air?--made me look up from the open sheet before me, and glance over at
+grandmamma.
+
+For a moment I felt quite frightened. She was leaning back in her chair,
+looking very white, and I could almost have thought she was fainting,
+except that her lips were moving as if she were speaking softly to
+herself.
+
+I flew across the room to her.
+
+'Granny,' I said, '_dear_ granny, what is it? Are you ill--is anything
+the matter?'
+
+Just at first, I think, I forgot about the letter lying on her lap--but
+before she spoke she touched it with her fingers.
+
+'I am only a little startled, dear child,' she said, 'startled and----'
+I could not catch the other word she said, she spoke it so softly, but I
+think it was 'thankful.' 'No, there is nothing wrong, but you will
+understand my feeling rather upset when I tell you that this letter is
+from Cosmo--you know whom I mean, Helena, Cosmo Vandeleur, my nephew,
+who has not written to me all these years.'
+
+At once I was full of interest, not unmixed--and I think it was
+natural--with some indignation.
+
+'So he is alive and well, I suppose?' I said, rather bitterly. 'Well,
+granny, I hope you will not trouble about him any more. He must be a
+horrid man, after all your kindness to him when he was a boy, never to
+have written or seemed to care if you were alive or dead.'
+
+'No, dear,' said grandmamma, whose colour was returning, though her
+voice still sounded weak and tremulous--'no, dear. You must not think of
+him in that way. Careless he has certainly been, but he has not lost his
+affection for me. I will explain it all to you soon, but I must think it
+over first. I feel still so upset, I can scarcely take it in.'
+
+She stopped, and her breath seemed to come in gasps. I was not a stupid
+child, and I had plenty of common sense.
+
+'Granny, dear,' I said, 'don't try to talk any more just now. I will
+call Kezia, and she must give you some water, or tea, or something. And
+I won't call Mr. Vandeleur horrid if it vexes you.'
+
+Kezia knew how to take care of grandmamma, though it was very, very
+seldom she was ever faint or nervous or anything of that kind.
+
+And something told me that the best _I_ could do was to leave dear
+granny alone for a little with the faithful servant who had shared her
+joys and sorrows for so long.
+
+So I took my own letter--Sharley's letter I mean, and ran upstairs to
+fetch my hat and jacket.
+
+'I'm going out for a little, grandmamma,' I said, putting my head in
+again for half a second at the drawing-room door as I passed. 'It isn't
+cold this morning, and I've got a long letter from Sharley to read over
+and over again.'
+
+'Take care of yourself, darling,' said granny, and as I shut the door I
+heard her say to Kezia, 'dear child--she has such tact and
+thoughtfulness for her age. It is for her I am so thankful, Kezia.'
+
+I was pleased to be praised. I have always loved praise--too much, I am
+afraid. But my conscience told me I had _not_ been thoughtful for
+grandmamma lately, not as thoughtful as I might have been certainly.
+This feeling troubled me on one side, and on the other I was dying with
+curiosity to know what it was granny was thankful about. The mere fact
+of a letter having come from that 'horrid, selfish, ungrateful man,' as
+I still called him to myself, though I would not speak of him so to
+grandmamma, could not be anything to be so thankful about--at least not
+to be thankful for _me_. What could it be? What had he written to say?
+
+I am afraid that Sharley's letter scarcely had justice done to it the
+second time I read it through--between every line would come up the
+thought of what grandmamma had said, and the wondering what she could
+mean. And besides that, the uncomfortable feeling that I was not as good
+as she thought me--that I did not deserve all the love and anxiety she
+lavished on me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A GREAT CHANGE
+
+
+Perhaps here it will be best for me to tell straight off what the
+contents of Mr. Vandeleur's letter were. Not, I mean, to go into all as
+to when and how grandmamma told me about it, with 'she said's' and 'I
+said's.' Besides, it would not be quite correct to tell it that way, for
+as a matter of fact I did not understand everything _then_ as I do now
+that I am several years older, and it would be difficult not to mix up
+what I have since come to know with the ideas I then had--ideas which
+were in some ways mistaken and childish.
+
+First of all, how do you think Cousin Cosmo, as I was told to call him,
+had come to write again after all those years of silence? What had put
+it into his head?
+
+The explanation is rather curious. It all came from Gerard Nestor's
+being at Moor Court that Easter, and feeling so sorry for grandmamma
+and so sure that she was in trouble.
+
+I have told, as we knew afterwards, that he had written to his people,
+but that grandmamma's way of answering made them think, and hope, that
+he had fancied more than was really the matter, and besides it was
+difficult for the Nestors, who were not _relations_, to do anything to
+help grandmamma, unless she had in some way given them her confidence.
+At that time they were hoping to come home the following spring, and
+then, probably, Mrs. Nestor would have found out more.
+
+But when Gerard first went back to school his head was full of it. He
+had not been _told_ anything, it was only his own suspicions, so there
+was no harm in his speaking of it, as he did, though quite privately, to
+his great friend, Harry Vandeleur.
+
+And Harry gave him some confidences in return. Lady Bridget Woodstone,
+the old lady who was guardian to him and his brother, had lately
+died--the boys had spent their last holidays at school, but a new
+guardian had now appeared on the scene. This was a cousin of theirs
+whom, till then, they had never heard of, and this cousin was no other
+than grandmamma's nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.
+
+Gerard quite started when he heard the name, which he remembered quite
+well. Harry said that Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur was grave and quiet, he and
+Lindsay felt rather afraid of him, but they would know better what sort
+of person he was when they had spent the holidays with him.
+
+'We are to go to his house, or at least to a house he has got in Devon,
+near the sea-side, next August,' he told Gerard, and he promised that he
+would ask his guardian if he had any relation called Mrs. Wingfield, and
+if he found it was the same, he would tell him what Gerard had said, and
+how all these years she had been hoping to hear from him. For granny had
+told Gerard almost as much as she had told me of how strange it was that
+'Cosmo' never wrote.
+
+Well now you--by 'you' of course I mean whoever reads this story, if
+ever any one does--you begin to see how it came about. Harry Vandeleur
+_did_ tell his guardian about us, or about grandmamma, and found out
+that she _was_ his aunt. Mr. Vandeleur was very much startled, Harry
+said, to hear about how very differently she was living now, and he
+wrote down the address and told Harry he would make further enquiries.
+
+That was all Harry knew, for Mr. Vandeleur was very reserved, and Harry
+and Lindsay did not feel as if they knew him any better after the
+holidays than before. Mrs. Vandeleur was very ill, though they thought
+she would have liked to be kind; they were always being told not to make
+a noise, and so they stayed out-of-doors as much as they could. It was
+rather dull (_very_ dull, I should think), and they hoped they would not
+spend their next holidays there; they would almost rather stay at
+school.
+
+It was August or September when Mr. Vandeleur heard about grandmamma. He
+did not at once write to her; he made enquiries of the lawyer who had
+for many years managed, grandpapa's and papa's affairs, and he found it
+was only too true, that granny was _very_ badly off. But even then he
+did not write immediately, for Mrs. Vandeleur got worse and for a little
+while they were afraid she was going to die.
+
+He told granny this in his letter, but went on to say that Mrs.
+Vandeleur was better, and the doctors hoped she might be moved home to
+their house in London after the new year. In the meantime he was in
+great difficulty what to do, he had to be in London a good deal, and it
+was a pity to shut up the house, as they had made it all very nice, and
+they had good servants. And even when Mrs. Vandeleur was much better
+she must not be troubled about housekeeping or anything for a long time,
+and besides this, there was a new responsibility upon him, which he
+would tell granny about afterwards. He meant the care of the two boys,
+but he did not speak of them then.
+
+Some part of this, grandmamma told me that very evening; she also told
+me how sorry her nephew was about his long silence, though, as I think I
+said before, he _had_ written and got no answer,--a letter which she had
+never received.
+
+Here I find I must change my plan a little after all, and go into
+conversation again. For as I am writing there comes back to me one part
+of our talk that evening so clearly, that I think I can remember almost
+every word.
+
+We had got as far as grandmamma telling me most of what I have now
+written down, but still I did not see why the letter had so upset her or
+why she had whispered something to herself about being 'thankful.'
+
+'Well,' I said, 'I am glad he has written if it pleases you, grandmamma.
+But I don't think I want ever to see him.'
+
+'You must not be prejudiced, Helena dear,' she answered. 'I think it
+very likely you will see him, and before very long. I have not yet told
+you what he proposes. He wants us to go to--to pay him a long visit in
+London. He says I should be a very great help to him and Agnes--Agnes is
+his wife--as I could take charge of things for her.'
+
+'Of course you would be a great help,' I said. 'But I think it is rather
+cool of him to expect you to give up your own home and go off there just
+to be of use to them.'
+
+Grandmamma sighed. She did not want to tell me too much of her
+increasing anxiety about money, and yet without doing so it was
+difficult for her to make me understand how really kind Mr. Vandeleur's
+proposal was, and how it had not come a day too soon.
+
+'There are more reasons than that for my accepting his invitation,' she
+said. 'It will be of advantage to us in many ways not to spend the
+coming winter here, but in a warm, large house. If we had weather like
+last year I should dread it very much. London is on the whole very
+healthy in winter, in spite of the fogs. And you are growing old enough
+to take in new ideas, Helena, and to benefit by seeing something more of
+life.'
+
+I felt very strange, almost giddy, with the thought of such a change.
+
+'Do you really mean, grandmamma,' I said, 'that--that you are thinking
+of going there _soon_?'
+
+'Very soon,' she answered, 'almost at once. It may get cold and wintry
+here any day, and besides that, my nephew is very anxious to settle his
+own plans as quickly as possible.'
+
+I said nothing for a minute or two. In my heart I was not at all sorry
+at the prospect of a winter in London, even though I naturally shrank
+from leaving dear old Windy Gap, the only home I had ever known. But the
+sort of spoilt way I had got into kept me from expressing the pleasure I
+felt--that one side of me felt, anyway.
+
+'I don't believe he cares about us,' I said at last rather grumpily. 'I
+am sure he is a very selfish man.'
+
+Grandmamma looked distressed, but she was wise, too. She saw I was
+really inclined to be 'naughty' about it.
+
+'Helena, my dearest child,' she said, and though she spoke most kindly I
+heard by her voice that she would be firm, 'you must not yield to
+prejudice, and you must trust me. This invitation is the very best thing
+that could have come to us at present, and I am deeply grateful for it.
+It is rather startling, I know, but there should be a good deal of
+pleasure for you in our new prospects. And I am sure you will see this
+in a day or two. Now go to bed, my darling. To-morrow we shall have a
+great deal to talk over, and you must keep well and strong so as to be
+able to help me.'
+
+She kissed me tenderly, and I whispered 'Good-night, dear grandmamma,'
+gently and affectionately.
+
+But as soon as I got upstairs and was alone in my own little room, I
+burst into tears. I daresay it was only natural. Still, I see now that
+my feelings were not altogether what they should have been. There was a
+great deal of selfishness and spoiltness mixed up with them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that evening I have rather a confused remembrance of the next two
+or three weeks. Things seemed to hurry on in a bewildering way, and of
+course it was all the more bewildering to me, as I had never known any
+change or uprooting of the kind in my life.
+
+Grandmamma was exceedingly busy. She had to write very often to Mr.
+Vandeleur, and he replied in a most business-like way, generally, I
+think, by return. It was no longer a great event for the postman to be
+seen turning up our path, and as well as letters he sometimes now
+brought parcels.
+
+For grandmamma was determined that we should both look nice when we
+first went to London to live in her nephew's big house, where there were
+so many servants.
+
+'We must do him credit,' she said to me, with a smile. I understood what
+she meant, and I had a feeling of pride about it, too, and I was very
+pleased to have some new dresses and hats and other things. But with me
+there was no good feeling to my cousin mixed up in all this. I now know
+that there was reason for grandmamma's wish to gratify him; he behaved
+most generously and thoughtfully about everything, sending her more than
+sufficient money for all we needed, and doing it in such a nice
+way--just as a son who had grown rich might take pleasure in helping a
+mother to whom he owed more than mere money could ever repay.
+
+But though grandmamma read out to me bits of his letters in which he was
+always repeating how grateful he was to her for coming to his aid in his
+difficulties, she did not tell me the whole particulars of her
+arrangements with him. He would not have liked it, and I was really too
+young to have been told all these money-matters.
+
+I did notice that there was never any mention of me in what she read to
+me. And now I know that Mr. Vandeleur did _not_ particularly rejoice at
+the prospect of my living with them too. He had proposed that I should
+be sent to some very good school, for he knew nothing of children,
+especially of little girls. I think he believed they were even more
+tiresome and mischievous and bothering in every way than boys.
+
+Grandmamma would not listen for an instant to this proposal. Her first
+and greatest duty in life was her granddaughter, 'Paul's little girl,'
+and she would do _anything_ rather than be separated from me, especially
+as I was delicate and required care. In reality I was not nearly as
+delicate as she thought. But I daresay it did not add to my cousin's
+wish to have me in his house to hear that I was considered so.
+
+Among the other things that grandmamma had to arrange about was what to
+do with Windy Gap. In her heart I believe she thought it very unlikely
+that it would ever be our home again, but she did not say anything of
+this kind to me. She went off one day to Mr. Timbs to ask him to try to
+let it as it was, with our furniture in. He promised to do his best, but
+did not think it likely it would let in the winter.
+
+'And by the spring we shall be coming back again,' I said, when granny
+told me this. I had not gone with her to Mr. Timbs; she had made some
+little excuse for not taking me.
+
+To this she did not reply, and I thought no more about it, but I was
+glad to hear that Kezia was to stay on in the cottage to keep it all
+aired and in nice order. And I said to her secretly that if granny and I
+were not happy in Chichester Square--that was the name of the gloomy,
+rather old-fashioned square, filled with handsome gloomy houses, where
+Mr. Vandeleur lived--it was nice to feel that we had only to drive to
+the station and get into the train and be 'home' again in four or five
+hours.
+
+Kezia smiled, though I think in her heart she was much more inclined to
+cry, and said she hoped to hear of our being very happy indeed in
+London, though of course she would look forward to seeing us again.
+
+I shall never forget the day we left our dear little cottage. It had
+begun to be wintry, a sprinkling of snow was on the ground and the air
+was quite frosty, though the morning was bright. I did feel so
+strange--sorrowful yet excited, and as if I really did not know who I
+was. And though the tears were running down poor Kezia's face when she
+bade us good-bye at the window of the railway carriage, I could not have
+cried if I had wished. We had a three miles' drive to the station. It
+was only the third or fourth time in my life I had ever been there, and
+I had never travelled for longer than half an hour or so, when granny
+had taken me, and once or twice Sharley and the others, to one of the
+neighbouring towns famed for their beautiful cathedrals.
+
+We travelled second class. I thought it very comfortable, and it was
+very nice to have foot-warmers, which I had never seen before. My
+spirits rose steadily and even grandmamma's face had a pinky colour,
+which made her look quite young.
+
+'I should like to travel like this for a week without stopping,' I said.
+
+Granny smiled.
+
+'I don't think you would,' she said. 'You will feel you have had quite
+enough of it by the time we get to London.'
+
+And after an hour or two, especially when the short winter afternoon
+grew misty and dull, so that I could scarcely distinguish the landscape
+as we flew past, I began to agree with her.
+
+'It will be quite dark when we get to Chichester Square,' said
+grandmamma. 'You must wait for your first real sight of London till
+to-morrow. I hope the weather will not be foggy.'
+
+'Will there be flys at the station?' I asked, 'or did you write to order
+one?'
+
+Grandmamma smiled.
+
+'No, dear, that would not be necessary. There are always lots of
+four-wheelers and hansoms. But Mr. Vandeleur is sending a footman to
+meet us and he will find us a cab.'
+
+'Hasn't he got a carriage then?' said I.
+
+Grandmamma shook her head.
+
+'Not in London. Their carriages and horses are in the country still for
+Mrs. Vandeleur. They will not be sent back to London till she comes.'
+
+'I hope that won't be for a good long while,' I said to myself, rather
+unfeelingly, for I might have remembered that as soon as my cousin's
+wife was well enough she was to return. So her staying away long would
+mean her not getting well.
+
+Their being away--for Mr. Vandeleur was not in London himself just
+then--was the part that pleased me the most of the whole plan. I thought
+it would be great fun to be alone in London with grandmamma, and I had
+been making lists of the things I wanted her to do and the places we
+should go to see. It never struck me that she could have any one or
+anything to think of but me myself!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+NO. 29 CHICHESTER SQUARE
+
+
+It was quite dark when we arrived at Paddington Station, and long before
+then, as grandmamma had prophesied, I had had much more than enough of
+the railway journey at first so pleasant.
+
+I was tired and sleepy. It all seemed very, very strange and confusing
+to me--the huge railway station, the dimly burning gas-lamps, the
+bustle, the lots of people. For, as I have to keep reminding you, there
+is scarcely ever nowadays a child who leads so quiet and unchangeful a
+life as mine had been. I felt in a dream. If I had been less tired in my
+body I daresay my mind and fancy would have been amused and excited by
+it all. As it was, I just clung to grandmamma stupidly, wondering how
+she kept her head, wondering still more, when I heard her suddenly
+talking to some one--who turned out to be Mr. Vandeleur's footman--how
+in the world she or he, or both of them, had managed to find each other
+out in the crowd!
+
+I did not speak. After a while I remember finding myself, and granny of
+course, safe in a four-wheeler, which seemed narrow and stuffy compared
+to the Middlemoor flys, and jolted along with a terrible rattle and
+noise, so that I could scarcely distinguish the words grandmamma said
+when once or twice she spoke to me. I daresay a good deal of the noise
+was outside the cab, and some of it perhaps inside my own head, for it
+did not altogether stop even when _we_ did--that is to say when we drew
+up at 29 Chichester Square.
+
+The house was very large--the hall looked to me almost as large as the
+hall at Moor Court. It was not really so, but I could scarcely judge of
+anything correctly that night. I was so very tired.
+
+[Illustration: A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
+respectfully to grandmamma.--P. 126.]
+
+A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed respectfully to
+grandmamma. He was the butler. He handed us over, so to say, to a
+nice-looking oldish woman, who was the head housemaid, and she took us
+at once upstairs to our rooms, the butler asking grandmamma to leave the
+luggage and the cab-paying to him--he would see that it was all right.
+She thanked him nicely, but rather 'grandly'--not at all as if she
+was not accustomed to lots of servants and attention, which I was
+pleased at. It was a good thing for me that I had been so much with the
+Nestors; it prevented my seeming awkward or shy with so many servants
+about, which otherwise I might have been. Grandmamma of course _had_
+been used to being rich, but _I_ never had.
+
+There came a disappointment the very first thing. Hales, the housemaid,
+threw open the door of a large, rather gloomy-looking bedroom, where a
+fire was burning and candles already lighted.
+
+'Your room, ma'am,' she said. 'Missie's----' she hesitated. 'Miss
+Wingfield's,' said granny. 'Miss Wingfield's,' Hales repeated, 'is on
+the next floor but one.'
+
+Grandmamma looked uneasy.
+
+'Is it far from this room?' she said.
+
+'Oh no, ma'am, just the staircase--it is over this. Mr. Vandeleur
+thought it was the best. It was Mrs. Vandeleur's when she was a little
+girl.' For the house in Chichester Square had been left to Cousin Agnes
+by her parents a few years ago; that was why it seemed rather
+old-fashioned. 'All the rooms on this floor besides this one,' Hales
+went on, 'are Mrs. Vandeleur's; and master's study, and the next floor
+are spare rooms, except to the back, and we thought it was fresher and
+pleasanter to the front for the young lady.'
+
+Grandmamma looked pleased at the kind way Hales spoke, but still she
+hesitated. I gave her a little tug.
+
+'I don't mind,' I said, for I was not at all a frightened child about
+sleeping alone and things like that. She smiled back at me. 'That's
+right,' she said, and I felt rewarded.
+
+My room was a nice one when I got there, but it did seem a tremendous
+way up, and it looked rather bare and felt rather chilly, even though
+there was a fire burning, which, however, had not been lighted very
+long. The housemaid went towards it and gave it a poke, murmuring
+something about 'Belinda being so careless.' Belinda, as I soon found
+out, was the second housemaid, and it was she who was to wait upon me
+and take care of my room.
+
+'You must ring for anything you want, miss,' said Hales, 'and if Belinda
+isn't attentive perhaps you will mention it.'
+
+And so saying she left me. I felt rather lonely, even though grandmamma
+was in the same house. There was a deserted feeling about the room as if
+it had not been used for a very long time, and my two boxes looked very
+small indeed. I felt no interest in unpacking my things, even though I
+had brought my books and some of my little ornaments.
+
+'They will look nothing in this great bare place,' I thought. 'I won't
+take them out, and then I shall have the feeling that we are not going
+to be here for long.'
+
+A queer sort of home-sickness for Windy Gap and for my life there came
+over me.
+
+'I do wish we had not come here; I'm sure I'm going to hate it. I think
+grandmamma might have come up with me to see my room,' and I stood there
+beside the flickering little fire, feeling far from happy or even
+amiable.
+
+Suddenly, the sound of a gong startled me. I had not even begun to take
+off my hat and jacket. I did so now in a hurry, and then turned to wash
+my hands and face, somewhat cheered to find a can of nice hot water
+standing ready. Then I smoothed my hair with a little pocket-comb I had,
+as I dared not wait to take out any of my things. But I am afraid I did
+not look as neat as usual or as I might have done if I hadn't wasted my
+time.
+
+I hurried downstairs; a door stood open, and looking in, I was sure
+that it was the dining-room, and grandmamma there waiting for me. A
+table, which to me seemed very large, though it was really an
+ordinary-sized round one, was nicely arranged for tea. How glad I was
+that it was not dinner!
+
+'Come, dear,' said grandmamma, 'you must be very hungry.'
+
+'I couldn't change my dress, grandmamma,' I said, not quite sure if she
+would not be displeased with me.
+
+'Of course not,' she replied, cheerfully, 'I never expected it this
+first evening.'
+
+My spirits rose when I had had a nice cup of tea and something to
+eat--it is funny how our bodies rule our minds sometimes--and I began to
+talk more in my usual way, especially as, to my great relief, the
+servants had by this time left the room.
+
+'Shall we have tea like this every evening, grandmamma?' I asked; 'it is
+so much nicer than dinner.'
+
+Grandmamma hesitated.
+
+'Yes,' she said, 'while we are alone I think it will be the best plan,
+as you are too young for late dinner. When your cousins come home, of
+course things will be regularly arranged.'
+
+'That means,' I thought to myself, 'that I shall have all my meals
+alone, I suppose,' and again an unreasonably cross feeling came over me.
+
+Grandmamma noticed it, I think, but she said nothing, and very soon
+after we had finished tea she proposed that I should go to bed. She took
+me upstairs herself to my room, and waited till I was in bed; then she
+kissed me as lovingly and tenderly as ever, but, all the same, no sooner
+had she left me alone than I buried my face in the pillow and burst into
+tears. I had an under feeling that grandmamma was not quite pleased with
+me. I know now that she was only anxious, and perhaps a little
+disappointed, at my not seeming brighter. For, after all, everything she
+had done and was doing was for my sake, and I should have trusted her
+and known this by instinct, instead of allowing myself from the very
+first beginning of our coming to London to think I was a sort of martyr.
+
+'I can see how it's going to be,' I thought, 'as soon as ever Mr. and
+Mrs. Vandeleur come back I shall be nowhere at all and nobody at all in
+this horrid, gloomy London. Cousin Agnes will be grandmamma's first
+thought, and I shall be expected to spend most of my life up in my room
+by myself. It is too bad, it isn't my fault that I am an orphan with no
+other home of my own. I would rather have stayed at Windy Gap, however
+poor we were, than feel as I know I am going to do.'
+
+But in the middle of all these miserable ideas I fell asleep, and slept
+very soundly--I don't think I dreamt at all--till the next morning.
+
+When I opened my eyes I thought it was still the night. There seemed no
+light, but by degrees, as I got accustomed to the darkness, I made out
+the shapes of the two windows. Then a clock outside struck seven, and
+gradually everything came back to me--the journey and our arrival and
+the unhappy thoughts amidst which I had fallen asleep.
+
+Somehow, even though as yet there was nothing to cheer me--for what can
+be gloomier than to watch the cold dawn of a winter's morning creeping
+over the gray sky of London?--somehow, things seemed less dismal
+already. The fact was I had had a very good night, and was feeling
+rested and refreshed, so much so that I soon began to fidget and to wish
+that some one would come with my hot water and say it was time to get
+up.
+
+This did not happen till half-past seven, when a knock at the door was
+followed by the appearance of Belinda--at least I guessed it was
+Belinda, for I had not seen her before. She was a pleasant enough
+looking girl, but with rather a pert manner, and she spoke to me as if I
+were about six.
+
+'You'd better get up at once, miss, as breakfast's to be so early, and
+I'm to help you to dress if you need me.'
+
+'No, thank you,' I said with great dignity, 'I don't want any help. But
+where's my bath?'
+
+'I've had no orders about a bath,' she replied, 'but, to be sure, you
+can't go to the bathroom, as it's next master's dressing-room. You'll
+have to speak to Hales about it,' and she went away murmuring something
+indistinctly as to new ways and new rules.
+
+In a few minutes, however, she came back again, lumbering a bath after
+her and looking rather cross.
+
+'How different she is from Kezia,' I thought to myself. 'I would not
+have minded anything as much if she had come with us.'
+
+Still, I was sensible enough to know that it was no use making the worst
+of things, and I think I must have looked rather pleasanter and more
+cheerful than the evening before, when I tapped at grandmamma's door and
+went downstairs to breakfast holding her hand.
+
+_She_ had much more to think of and trouble about than I, and if I had
+not been so selfish I was quite sensible enough to have understood this.
+A great many things required rearranging and overlooking in the
+household, for, though the servants were good on the whole, it was long
+since they had had a mistress's eye over them, and without that, even
+the best servants are pretty sure to get into careless ways. And
+grandmamma was so very conscientious that she felt even more anxious
+about all these things for Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur's sake, than if it had
+been her own house and her own servants. Besides, though she was so
+clever and experienced, it was a good many years since she had had a
+large house to look after, as our little home at Middlemoor had been so
+very, very simple. Yes, I see now it must have been very hard upon her,
+for, instead of doing all I could to help her, I was quite taken up with
+my own part of it, and ready to grumble at and exaggerate every little
+difficulty or disagreeableness.
+
+I think grandmamma tried for some time not to see the sort of humour I
+was in, and how selfish and spoilt I had become. She excused me to
+herself by saying I was tired, and that such a complete change of life
+was trying for a child, and by kind little reasons of that sort.
+
+'I shall be rather busy this morning,' she said to me that first day at
+breakfast, 'but if it keeps fine we can go out a little in the
+afternoon, and let you have your first peep of London. Let me see, what
+can you do with yourself this morning? You have your things to unpack
+still, and I daresay you would like to put out your ornaments and books
+in your own room.'
+
+'I don't mean to put them out,' I said, 'it's not worth while. I will
+keep my books in one of the boxes and just get one out when I want it,
+and as for the ornaments, they wouldn't look anything in that big, bare
+room.'
+
+But as I said this I caught sight of grandmamma's face, and I felt
+ashamed of being so grumbling when I was really feeling more cheerful
+and interested in everything than the night before. So I changed my tone
+a little.
+
+'I will unpack all my things,' I said, 'and see how they look, anyway.
+Perhaps I'd better hang up my new frocks, I wouldn't like them to get
+crushed.'
+
+'I should think Belinda would have unpacked your clothes by this time,'
+said grandmamma, 'but no doubt you'll find something to do. But, by the
+bye, they may not have lighted a fire in your room, don't stay upstairs
+long if you feel chilly, but bring your work down to the library.' I
+went upstairs. In the full daylight, though it was a dull morning, I
+liked my room even less than the night before. There was nothing in it
+bright or fresh, though I daresay it had looked much nicer, years
+before, when Cousin Agnes was a little girl, for the cretonne curtains
+must once have been very pretty, with bunches of pink roses, which now,
+however, were faded, as well as the carpet on the floor, and the paper
+on the walls, to an over-all dinginess such as you never see in a
+country room even when everything in it is old.
+
+I sat down on a chair and looked about me disconsolately. Belinda had
+unpacked my clothes and arranged them after her fashion. My other
+possessions were still untouched, but I did not feel as if I cared to do
+anything with them.
+
+'I shall never be at home here,' I said to myself, 'but I suppose I must
+just try to bear it for the time, for grandmamma's sake.'
+
+Silly child that I was, as if grandmamma ever thought of herself, or her
+own likes and dislikes, before what she considered right and good for
+me. But the idea of being something of a martyr pleased me. I got out
+my work, not my fancy-work--I was in a mood for doing disagreeable
+things--but some plain sewing that I had not touched for some time, and
+took it downstairs to the library. I heard voices as I opened the door,
+grandmamma was sitting at the writing-table speaking to the cook, who
+stood beside her, a rather fat, pleasant-looking woman, who made a
+little curtsey when she saw me. But grandmamma looked up, for her,
+rather sharply--
+
+'Why, have you finished upstairs already, Helena?' she said. 'You had
+better go into the dining-room for a few minutes, I am busy just now.'
+
+I went away immediately, but I was very much offended, it just seemed
+the beginning of what I was fancying to myself. The dining-room door was
+ajar, and I caught sight of the footman looking over some spoons and
+forks.
+
+'I won't go in there,' I said to myself, and upstairs I mounted again.
+
+On the first landing, where grandmamma's room was, there were several
+other doors. All was perfectly quiet--there seemed no servants about, so
+I thought I would amuse myself by a little exploring. The first room I
+peeped into was large--larger than grandmamma's, but all the furniture
+was covered up. The only thing that interested me was a picture in
+pastelles hanging up over the mantelpiece. It caught my attention at
+once, and I stood looking up at it for some moments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+AN ARRIVAL
+
+
+It was the portrait of a young girl,--a very sweet face with soft,
+half-timid looking eyes.
+
+[Illustration: It was the portrait of a young girl.--P. 139.]
+
+'I wonder who it is,' I thought to myself, 'I wonder if it is Mrs.
+Vandeleur. If it is, she must be nice. I almost think I should like her
+very much.'
+
+A door in this room led into a dressing-room, which next caught my
+attention. Here, too, the only thing that struck me was a portrait. This
+time, a photograph only, of a boy. Such a nice, open face! For a moment
+or two I thought it must be Cousin Cosmo, but looking more closely I saw
+written in one corner the name 'Paul' and the date 'July 1865.' I caught
+my breath, as I said to myself--
+
+'It must be papa! I wonder if granny knows--she has none of him as young
+as that, I am sure. Oh, dear, how I do wish he was alive!'
+
+But it was with a softened feeling towards both of my unknown cousins
+that I stepped out on to the landing again.
+
+It did seem as if Mr. Vandeleur must have been very fond of my father
+for him to have kept this photograph all these years, hanging up where
+he must see it every time he came into his room.
+
+Unluckily, just as I was thinking this, Belinda made her appearance
+through a door leading on to the backstairs.
+
+'What are you doing here, miss?' she said. 'I don't think Hales would be
+best pleased to find you wandering about through these rooms.'
+
+'I don't know what you mean,' I said, frightened, yet indignant too. 'I
+was only looking at the pictures. In grandmamma's house at home I go
+into any room I like.'
+
+She gave a little laugh.
+
+'Oh, but you see, miss, you are not at your own home now,' she said,
+'that makes all the difference,' and she passed on, closing the door I
+had left open, as if to say, 'you can't go in there again!'
+
+I made my way up to my own room, all the doleful feelings coming back.
+
+'Really,' I said, as I curled myself up at the foot of the bed, 'there
+seems no place for me in the world, it's "move on--move on," like the
+poor boy in the play grandmamma once told me about.'
+
+And I sat there in the cold, nursing my bitter and discontented
+thoughts, as if I had nothing to be grateful or thankful for in life.
+
+Grandmamma did not come up to look for me, as in my secret heart I think
+I hoped she would. She was very, very busy, busier than I could have
+understood if she had told me about it, for though he did not at all
+mean to put too much upon her, Mr. Vandeleur had such faith in her good
+sense and judgment, that he had left everything to be settled by her
+when we came.
+
+I do not know if I fell asleep; I think I must have dozed a little, for
+the next thing I remember is rousing up, and feeling myself stiff and
+cramped, and not long after that the gong sounded again. I got down from
+my bed and looked at myself in the glass; my face seemed very pinched
+and miserable. I made my hair neat and washed my hands, for I would not
+have dared to go downstairs untidy to the dining-room. But I was not at
+all sorry when grandmamma looked at me anxiously, exclaiming--
+
+'My dear child, how white you are! Where have you been, and what have
+you been doing with yourself?'
+
+'I've been up in my own room,' I said, and just then grandmamma said
+nothing more, but when we were alone again she spoke to me seriously
+about the foolishness of risking making myself ill for no reason.
+
+'There _is_ reason,' I said crossly, 'at least there's no reason why I
+shouldn't be ill; nobody cares how I am.'
+
+For all answer grandmamma drew me to her and kissed me.
+
+'My poor, silly, little Helena,' she said.
+
+I was touched and ashamed, but irritated also; grandmamma understood me
+better than I understood myself.
+
+'We are going out now,' she said, 'put on your things as quickly as you
+can. I have several shops to go to, and the afternoons close in very
+early in London just now.'
+
+That walk with grandmamma--at least it was only partly a walk, for she
+took a hansom to the first shop she had to go to,--and I had never been
+in a hansom before, so you can fancy how I enjoyed it--yes, that first
+afternoon in London stands out very happily. Once I had grandmamma quite
+to myself everything seemed to come right, and I could almost have
+skipped along the street in my pleasure and excitement. The shops were
+already beginning to look gay in anticipation of Christmas, to
+me--country child that I was, they were bewilderingly magnificent.
+Grandmamma was careful not to let me get too tired, we drove home again
+in another hansom, carrying some of our purchases with us. These were
+mostly things for the house, and a few for ourselves, and shopping was
+so new to me, that I took the greatest interest even in ordering brushes
+for the housemaid, or choosing a new afternoon tea-service for Cousin
+Agnes.
+
+That evening, too, passed much better than the morning. Grandmamma spoke
+to me about how things were likely to be and what I myself should try to
+do.
+
+'I cannot fix anything about lessons for you,' she said, 'till after
+Cosmo and Agnes return, for I do not know how much time I shall have
+free for you. But you are well on for your age, and I don't think a few
+weeks without regular lessons will do you any harm, especially here in
+London, where there is so much new and interesting. But I think you had
+better make a plan for yourself--I will help you with it--for doing
+something every morning while I am busy.'
+
+'But I may be with you in the afternoons, mayn't I?' I said.
+
+'Of course, at least generally,' said grandmamma, 'whenever the weather
+is fine enough I will take you out. It would never do to shut you up
+when you have been so accustomed to the open air. Some days, perhaps, we
+may go out in the mornings. All I want you to understand now, is that
+plans cannot possibly be settled all at once. You must be patient and
+cheerful, and if there are things that you don't like just now, in a
+little while they will probably disappear.'
+
+I felt pleased at grandmamma talking to me more in her old consulting
+way, and for the time it seemed as if I could do as she wished without
+difficulty.
+
+And for some days and even weeks things went on pretty well. I used to
+get cross now and then when grandmamma could not be with me as much as I
+wanted, but so far, there was no _person_ to come between her and me, it
+was only her having so much to do; and whenever we were together she was
+so sweet and understanding in every way, that it made up for the lonely
+hours I sometimes had to spend.
+
+But in myself I am afraid there was not really any improvement, it was
+only on the surface. There was still the selfishness underneath, the
+readiness to take offence and be jealous of anything that seemed to put
+me out of my place as first with grandmamma. All the unhappy feelings
+were there, smouldering, ready to burst out into fire the moment
+anything stirred them up.
+
+Christmas came and went. It was very unlike any of the Christmases I had
+ever known, and of course it could not but seem rather lonely.
+Grandmamma still had some old friends in London, but she had not tried
+to see them, as she had been so busy, and not knowing as yet when Cousin
+Agnes would be returning. It seemed a sort of waiting time altogether.
+Now and then grandmamma would allude cheerfully to Cousin Cosmo and his
+wife coming home, hoping that it would be soon, as every letter brought
+better accounts of Mrs. Vandeleur's health. I certainly did not share in
+these hopes, I would rather have gone on living for ever as we were if
+only I could have had grandmamma to myself.
+
+I think it was about the 8th of January that there came one morning a
+letter which made grandmamma look very grave, and when she had finished
+reading it she sat for a moment or two without speaking. Then she said,
+as if thinking aloud--
+
+'Dear me, this is very disappointing.'
+
+'Is anything the matter?' I asked. 'Can't you tell me what it is,
+grandmamma?'
+
+'Oh yes, dear,' she said, 'it is only what I have been looking forward
+to so much--but it has come in such a different way. Your cousins are
+returning almost immediately, but only, I am sorry to say, because poor
+Agnes is so ill that the London doctor says she must be near him. They
+are bringing her up in an invalid carriage the first mild day, so I must
+have everything ready for them. It will probably be many weeks before
+she can leave her room,' and poor grandmamma sighed.
+
+This news was far from welcome to me, but I am afraid what I cared for
+had only to do with myself. I didn't feel very sorry for poor Cousin
+Agnes. Partly, perhaps, because I was too young to understand how
+seriously ill she was, but chiefly, I am afraid, because I immediately
+began to think how much of grandmamma's time would be taken up by her,
+and how dull it would be for me in consequence. And when grandmamma
+turned to me and said--
+
+'I'm sure I shall find you a help and comfort, Helena,' it almost
+startled me.
+
+I murmured something about wishing there was anything I could do, and I
+did feel ashamed.
+
+'I'm afraid there will not be much for you actually to do,' said
+grandmamma, 'and I don't think you need warning to be very quiet in a
+house with an invalid. You are never noisy,' and she smiled a little;
+'but you must try to be bright and not to mind if for a little while you
+have to be left a good deal to yourself. I must speak to Hales about
+going out with you sometimes, for you must have a walk every day.'
+
+And within a week of receiving this bad news there came one morning a
+telegram to say that Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur would be arriving that
+afternoon.
+
+'Oh, dear, dear,' I thought to myself when I heard it. 'I wish I
+were--oh, anywhere except here!'
+
+I spent the hours till luncheon--which was of course my dinner--as
+usual, doing some lessons and needlework. Hitherto, grandmamma had
+corrected my lessons in the evening.
+
+'I don't believe she'll have time to look over my exercises now,' I
+thought to myself, 'but I suppose I must go on doing them all the
+same.'
+
+I have forgotten to say that I did my lessons at a side table in the
+dining-room, where there was always a large fire burning. It did not
+seem worth while to have another room given up to me while grandmamma
+and I were alone in the house.
+
+I did not see grandmamma till luncheon, and then she told me that she
+was obliged to go out immediately to some distance, as Mrs. Vandeleur's
+invalid couch or table, I forget which, was not the kind ordered.
+
+'But mayn't I come with you?' I asked.
+
+Grandmamma shook her head. No, she was in a great hurry, and the place
+she was going to was in the city, it would do me no good, and it was a
+damp, foggy day. I might go into the Square garden for a little if I
+would promise to come in at once if it rained.
+
+There was nothing very inviting in this prospect. I liked the Square
+gardens well enough to walk up and down in with grandmamma, but alone
+was a very different matter. Still, it was better than staying in all
+the afternoon. And I spent an hour or more in pacing along the paths
+enjoying my self-pity to the full.
+
+There were a few other children playing together; how I envied them!
+
+'If I had even a little dog,' I said to myself, 'it would be something.
+But of course there's no chance of that--he would disturb Cousin Agnes.'
+
+I went back to the house an hour or so before the expected arrival.
+Grandmamma had already returned. She was in her own room, I peeped in on
+my way upstairs.
+
+'What do you want me to do, grandmamma?' I said.
+
+She glanced at me.
+
+'Change your frock, dear, and come down to the library with your work.
+Of course Cosmo will want to see you, once Cousin Agnes is settled in
+her room. Dear me, I do hope she will have stood the journey pretty
+well!'
+
+I came downstairs again with mixed feelings. I should rather have
+enjoyed making a martyr of myself by staying up in my own room. But, on
+the other hand, I had a good deal of curiosity on the subject of my
+unknown cousins.
+
+'I wonder if Cousin Agnes will be able to walk,' I thought to myself,
+'or if they will carry her in. I should like to see what an invalid
+carriage is like!'
+
+I think I pictured to myself a sort of palanquin, and eager to be on the
+spot at the moment of the arrival I changed my frock very quickly and
+hastened downstairs with my knitting in my hand--a model of propriety.
+
+'Do I look nice, grandmamma?' I asked. 'It is the first time I have had
+this frock on, you know.'
+
+For besides the new clothes grandmamma had ordered from Windy Gap, she
+had got me some very nice ones since we came to London. And this new one
+I thought the prettiest of all. It was brown velveteen with a falling
+collar of lace, with which I was especially pleased, for though my
+clothes had been always very neatly made, they had been very plain, the
+last two or three years more especially. So I stood there pleasantly
+expecting grandmamma's approval. But she scarcely glanced at me, I doubt
+if she heard what I said, for she was busy writing a note about
+something or other which had been forgotten, and almost as I spoke the
+footman came into the room to take it.
+
+'What were you saying, my dear?' she said quickly. 'Oh yes, very
+nice---- Be sure, William, that this is sent at once.'
+
+I crossed the room and sat down in the farthest corner, my heart
+swelling. It was not _all_ spoilt temper, I was really terribly afraid
+that grandmamma was beginning to care less for me. But before there had
+been time for her to notice my disappointment, there came the sound of
+wheels stopping at the door, and then the bell rang loudly. Grandmamma
+started up. If I had been less taken up with myself, I could easily have
+entered into her feelings. It was the first time for more than twelve
+years that she had seen her nephew, and think of all that had happened
+to her since then! But none of these thoughts came into my mind just
+then, it was quite filled with myself and my own troubles, and but for
+my curiosity I think I would have hidden myself behind the
+window-curtains.
+
+Grandmamma went out into the hall and I followed her. The door was
+already opened, as the servants had been on the look-out.
+
+The first thing I saw was a tall, slight figure coming very slowly up
+the steps on the arm of a dark, grave-looking man. Behind them came a
+maid laden with shawls and cushions. They came quietly into the hall,
+grandmamma moving forward a little to meet them, though without
+speaking.
+
+A smile came over Cousin Agnes's pale face as she caught sight of her,
+but Mr. Vandeleur looked up almost sharply.
+
+'Wait till we get her into the library,' he said.
+
+Evidently coming up those few steps had almost been too much for his
+wife, for I saw her face grow still paler. I was watching with such
+interest that I quite forgot that where I stood I was partially blocking
+up the doorway. Without noticing who I was, so completely absorbed was
+he with Cousin Agnes, Mr. Vandeleur stretched out his hand and half put
+me aside.
+
+'Take care,' he said quickly, and before there was time for
+more--'Helena, do get out of the way,' said grandmamma.
+
+That was the last straw for me. I did get out of the way. I turned and
+rushed across the hall, and upstairs to my own room without a word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A CATASTROPHE
+
+
+No one came up to look for me; I don't know that I expected it, but
+still I was disappointed and made a fresh grievance of this neglect, as
+I considered it. The truth was, nobody was thinking of me at all, for
+Cousin Agnes had fainted when she got into the library and everybody was
+engrossed in attending to her.
+
+Afternoon tea time came and passed, and still I was alone. It was quite
+dark when at last Belinda came up to draw down the blinds, and was
+startled by finding me in my usual place when much upset--curled up at
+the foot of the bed.
+
+'Whatever are you doing here, miss?' she said, sharply. 'There's your
+tea been waiting in the dining-room for ever so long.'
+
+The fact was, she had been told to call me but had forgotten it.
+
+'I don't want any,' I said, shortly.
+
+'Nonsense, miss,' said the girl, 'you can't go without eating. And when
+there's any one ill in the house you must just make the best of things.'
+
+'Mrs. Vandeleur didn't seem so very ill,' I said, 'she was able to
+walk.'
+
+'Ah, but she's been worse since then--they had to fetch the doctor, and
+now she's in bed and better, and your grandmamma's sitting beside her.'
+
+I did feel sorry for Cousin Agnes when I heard this, though the sore
+feeling still remained that I wasn't wanted, and was of no use to any
+one. I was almost glad to escape seeing grandmamma, so I went downstairs
+quietly to the dining-room and had my tea, for I was very hungry. Just
+as I had finished, and was crossing the hall to go upstairs again, a
+tall figure came out of the library. I knew in a moment who it was, but
+Cousin Cosmo stared at me as if he couldn't imagine what child it could
+be, apparently at home in his house.
+
+'Who--what?' he began, but then corrected himself. 'Oh, to be sure,' he
+added, holding out his hand, 'you're Helena of course. I wasn't sure if
+you were at school or not.'
+
+'At school,' I repeated, 'grandmamma would never send me to school.'
+
+He smiled a little, or meant to do so, but I thought him very grim and
+forbidding.
+
+'I don't wonder at those boys not liking him for their guardian,' I said
+to myself as I looked up at him.
+
+'Ah, well,' he replied, 'so long as you remember to be a very quiet
+little girl, especially when you pass the first landing, I daresay it
+will be all right.'
+
+I didn't condescend to answer, but walked off with my most dignified
+air, which no doubt was lost upon my cousin, who, I fancy, had almost
+forgotten my existence before he had closed the hall door behind him,
+for he was just going out.
+
+I did not see grandmamma that evening, and I did not know that she saw
+me, for when she at last was free to come up to my room, I was in bed
+and fast asleep, and she was careful not to wake me. She told me this
+the next morning, and also that Belinda had said I had had my tea and
+supper comfortably. But--partly from pride, and partly from better
+motives--I did not tell her that I had cried myself to sleep.
+
+I need not go into the daily history of the next few weeks, indeed I
+don't wish to do so. They were the most miserable time of my whole life.
+Now that all is happy I don't want to dwell upon them. Dear grandmamma
+says, whenever we do speak about that time, that she really does not
+think it was _all_ my fault, and that comforts me. It was certainly not
+her fault, nor anybody's in one way, except of course mine. Things
+happened in a trying way, as they must do in life sometimes, and I don't
+think it was wrong of me to feel unhappy. We _have_ to be unhappy
+sometimes; but it was wrong of me not to bear it patiently, and to let
+myself grow bitter, and worst of all, to do what I did--what I am now
+going to tell about.
+
+Those dreary weeks went on till it was nearly Easter, which came very
+early that year. After my cousins' return home the weather got very bad
+and added to the gloom of everything.
+
+It was not so very cold, but it was _so_ dull! Fog more or less, every
+day, and if not fog, sleety rain, which generally began by trying to be
+snow, and for my part I wished it had been--it would have made the
+streets look clean for a few hours.
+
+There were lots of days on which I couldn't go out at all, and when I
+did go out, with Belinda as my companion, I did not enjoy it. She was a
+silly, selfish girl, though rather good-natured once she felt I was in
+some way dependent on her, but her ideas of amusing talk were not the
+same as mine. The only shop-windows she cared to look at were milliners'
+and drapers', and she couldn't understand my longing to read the names
+of the tempting volumes in the booksellers, and feeling so pleased if I
+saw any of my old friends among them.
+
+Indoors, my life was really principally spent in my own room, where,
+however, I always had a good big fire, which was a comfort. There were
+many days on which I scarcely saw grandmamma, a few on which I actually
+did not see her at all. For all this time Cousin Agnes was really
+terribly ill--much worse than I knew--and Mr. Vandeleur was nearly out
+of his mind with grief and anxiety, and self-reproach for having brought
+her up to London, which he had done rather against the advice of her
+doctor in the country, who, he now thought, understood her better than
+the great doctor in London. And grandmamma, I believe, had nearly as
+much to do in comforting him and keeping him from growing quite morbid,
+as in taking care of Cousin Agnes. All the improvement in her health
+which they had been so pleased at during the first part of the winter
+had gone, and I now know that for a great part of those weeks there was
+very little hope of her living. I saw Cousin Cosmo sometimes at
+breakfast but never at any other hour of the day, unless I happened to
+pass him on the staircase, which I avoided as much as possible, you may
+be sure, for if he did speak to me it was as if I were about three years
+old, and he was sure to say something about being very quiet. I don't
+think I could have been expected to like him, but I'm afraid I almost
+hated him then. It would have been better--that is one of the things
+grandmamma now says--to have told me more of their great anxiety, and it
+certainly would have been better to send me to school, to some
+day-school even, for the time.
+
+As it was, day by day I grew more miserable, for you see I had nothing
+to look forward to, no actual reason for hoping that my life would ever
+be happier again, for, not knowing but that poor Cousin Agnes might die
+any day, grandmamma did not like to speak of the future at all.
+
+I never saw her--Cousin Agnes I mean--never except once, but I have not
+come to that yet. At last, things came to a crisis with me. One day, one
+morning, Belinda told me that I must not stay in my room as it was to be
+what she called 'turned out,' by which she meant that it was to undergo
+an extra thorough cleaning. She had forgotten to tell me this the night
+before, so that when I came up from breakfast, which I had had alone,
+intending to settle down comfortably with my books before the fire, I
+found there was no fire and everything in confusion.
+
+'What am I to do?' I said.
+
+'You must go down to the dining-room and do your lessons there,' said
+Belinda. 'There will be no one to disturb you, once the breakfast things
+are taken away.'
+
+'Has Mr. Vandeleur had his breakfast?' I asked.
+
+'I don't know,' said Belinda, shortly, for she had been told not to tell
+me that Cousin Agnes had been so ill in the night that the great doctor
+had been sent for, and they were now having a consultation about her in
+the library.
+
+'I'll help you to get your things together,' she went on, 'and you must
+go downstairs as quietly as possible.'
+
+We collected my books. It made me melancholy to see them, there were
+such piles of exercises grandmamma had never had time to look over!
+Belinda heaped them all on to the top of my atlas, the glass ink-bottle
+among them.
+
+'Are they quite steady?' I said. 'Hadn't I better come up again and only
+take half now?'
+
+'Oh, dear, no,' said Belinda,'they are right enough if you walk
+carefully,' for in her heart she knew that she should have helped me to
+carry them down, herself.
+
+But I had got used to her careless ways, and I didn't seem to mind
+anything much now, so I set off with my burden. It was all right till I
+got to the first floor--the floor where grandmamma's and Cousin Agnes's
+rooms were. Then, as ill luck would have it--just from taking extra
+care, I suppose--somehow or other I lost my footing and down I went, a
+regular good bumping roll from top to bottom of one flight of stairs,
+books, and slate, and glass ink-bottle all clattering after me! I'm
+quite sure that in all my life before or since I never made such a
+noise!
+
+[Illustration: Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
+first.--P. 160.]
+
+I hurt myself a good deal, though not seriously; but before I had time
+to do more than sit up and feel my arms and legs to be sure that none of
+them were broken, the library door below was thrown open, and up rushed
+two or three--at first sight I thought them still more--men! Cousin
+Cosmo the first.
+
+'In heaven's name,' he exclaimed, though even then he did not speak
+loudly, 'what is the matter? This is really inexcusable!'
+
+He meant, I think, that there should have been some one looking after
+me! But I took the harsh word to myself.
+
+'I--I've fallen downstairs,' I said, which of course was easy to be
+seen. There was a dark pool on the step beside me, and in spite of his
+irritation Cousin Cosmo was alarmed.
+
+'Have you cut yourself?' he said, 'are you bleeding?' and he took out
+his handkerchief, hardly knowing why, but as he stooped towards me it
+touched the stain.
+
+'Ink!' he said, in a tone of disgust. 'Really, even a child might have
+more sense!'
+
+Then the older of the two men who were with him came forward. He had a
+very grave but kind face.
+
+'It is very unfortunate,' he said,'I hope the noise has not startled
+Mrs. Vandeleur. You must really,' he went on, turning to Cousin Cosmo,
+but then stopping--'I must have a word or two with you about this before
+I go. In the meantime we had better pick up this little person.'
+
+I got up of myself, though something in the doctor's face prevented my
+feeling vexed at his words, as I might otherwise have been. But just as
+I was stooping to pick up my books and to hide the giddy, shaky feeling
+which came over me, a voice from the landing above made me start. It was
+grandmamma herself; she hastened down the flight of stairs, looking
+extremely upset.
+
+'Helena!' she exclaimed, and I think her face cleared a little when she
+saw me standing there,'you have not hurt yourself then? But what in the
+world were you doing to make such a terrific clatter? I never knew her
+do such a thing before,' she went on.
+
+'Did Agnes hear it?' said Cousin Cosmo, sharply.
+
+'I'm afraid it did startle her,' grandmamma replied, 'but fortunately
+she thought it was something in the basement. I must go back to her at
+once,' and without another word to me she turned upstairs again.
+
+I can't tell what I felt like; even now I hate to remember it. My own
+grandmamma to speak to me in that voice and not to care whether I was
+hurt or not! I think some servant was called to wipe up the ink, and I
+made my way, stiff and bruised and giddy, to the dining-room--I had not
+even the refuge of my own room to cry in at peace--while Cousin Cosmo
+and the doctors went back to the library. And not long after, I heard
+the front door close and a carriage drive away.
+
+I thought my cup was full, but it was not, as you shall hear. I didn't
+try to do any lessons. My head was aching and I didn't feel as if it
+mattered what I did or didn't do.
+
+'If only my room was ready,' I thought, half stupidly, 'I wouldn't mind
+so much.'
+
+I think I must have cried a good deal almost without knowing it, for
+after a while, when the footman came into the room, I started up with a
+conscious feeling of not wanting to be seen, and turned towards the
+window, where I stood pretending to look out. Not that there was
+anything to be seen; the fog was getting so thick that I could scarcely
+distinguish the railings a few feet off.
+
+The footman left the room again, but I felt sure he was coming back, so
+I crept behind the shelter of the heavy curtains and curled myself up on
+the floor, drawing them round me. And then, how soon I can't tell, I
+fell asleep. It has always been my way to do so when I've been very
+unhappy, and the unhappier I am the more heavily I sleep, though not in
+a nice refreshing way.
+
+I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. I could not have been
+asleep more than an hour, but to me it seemed like a whole night, and as
+I was beginning to collect my thoughts I heard voices talking in the
+room behind me. It must have been these voices which had awakened me.
+
+The first I heard was Mr. Vandeleur's.
+
+'I am very sorry about it,' he was saying, 'but I see no help for it. I
+would not for worlds distress you if I could avoid doing so, for all my
+old debts to you, my dear aunt, are doubled now by your devotion to
+Agnes. She will in great measure owe her life to you, I feel.'
+
+'You exaggerate it,' said grandmamma, 'though I do believe I am a
+comfort to her. But never mind about that just now--the present question
+is Helena.'
+
+'Yes,' he replied, 'I can't tell you how strongly I feel that it would
+be for the child's good too, though I can quite understand it would be
+difficult for you to see it in that light.'
+
+'No,' said grandmamma, 'I have been thinking about it myself, for of
+course I have not been feeling satisfied about her. Perhaps in the past
+I have thought of her too exclusively, and it is very difficult for a
+child not to be spoilt by this. And now on the other hand----'
+
+'It is too much for you yourself,' interrupted my cousin, 'she should be
+quite off your mind. I have the greatest confidence in Dr. Pierce's
+judgment in such matters. He would recommend no school hastily. If you
+will come into the library I will give you the addresses of the two he
+mentioned. No doubt you will prefer to write for particulars yourself;
+though when it is settled I daresay I could manage to take her there.
+For even with these fresh hopes they have given us, now this crisis is
+passed, I doubt your being able to leave Agnes for more than an hour or
+two at a time.'
+
+'I should not think of doing so,' said grandmamma, decidedly. 'Yes--if
+you will give me the addresses I will write.'
+
+To me her voice sounded cold and hard; _now_ I know of course that it
+was only the force she was putting upon herself to crush down her own
+feelings about parting with me.
+
+It was not till they had left the room that I began to understand what a
+dishonourable thing I had been doing in listening to this conversation,
+and for a moment there came over me the impulse to rush after them and
+tell what I had heard. But only for a moment; the dull heavy feeling,
+which had been hanging over me for so long of not being cared for, of
+having no place of my own and being in everybody's way, seemed suddenly
+to have increased to an actual certainty. Hitherto, it now seemed to me,
+I had only been playing with the idea, and now as a sort of punishment
+had come upon me the reality of the cruel truth--grandmamma did _not_
+care for me any longer. She had got back the nephew who had been like a
+son to her, and he and his wife had stolen away from me all her love.
+Then came the mortification of remembering that I was living in Cousin
+Cosmo's house--a most unwelcome guest.
+
+'He never has liked me,' I thought to myself; 'even at the very
+beginning, grandmamma never gave me any kind messages from him. And
+those poor boys Gerard told me of couldn't care for him--he must be
+horrid.'
+
+Then a new thought struck me. 'I _have_ a home still,' I thought; 'Windy
+Gap is ours, I could live there with Kezia and trouble nobody and hardly
+cost anything. I won't stay here to be sent to school; I don't think I
+am bound to bear it.'
+
+I crept out of my corner.
+
+'Surely my room will be ready by now,' I thought, and walking very
+slowly still, for falling asleep in the cold had made me even stiffer,
+I made my way upstairs.
+
+Yes, my room was ready, and there was a good fire. There was a little
+comfort in that: I sat down on the floor in front of it and began to
+think out my plans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HARRY
+
+
+In spite of all that was on my mind I slept soundly, waking the next
+morning a little after my usual hour. Very quickly, so much was it
+impressed on my brain, I suppose, I recollected the determination with
+which I had gone to bed the night before.
+
+I hurried to the window and drew up the blind, for I had made one
+condition with myself--I would not attempt to carry out my plan if the
+fog was still there! But it had gone. Whether I was glad or sorry I
+really can't say. I dressed quickly, thinking or planning all the time.
+When I got downstairs to the dining-room it was empty, but on the table
+were the traces of some one having breakfasted there.
+
+Just then the footman came in--
+
+'I was to tell you, miss,' he said, 'that Mrs. Wingfield won't be down
+to breakfast; it's to be taken upstairs to her.'
+
+'And Mr. Vandeleur has had his, I suppose?' I said.
+
+'Yes, miss,' he replied, clearing the table of some of the plates and
+dishes.
+
+I went on with my breakfast, eating as much as I could, for being what
+is called an 'old-fashioned' child, I thought to myself it might be some
+time before I got a regular meal again. Then I went upstairs, where,
+thanks to Belinda's turn-out of the day before, my room was already in
+order and the fire lighted. I locked the door and set to work.
+
+About an hour later, having listened till everything seemed quiet about
+the house, I made my way cautiously and carefully downstairs, carrying
+my own travelling-bag stuffed as full as it would hold and a brown paper
+parcel. When I got to the first bedroom floor, where grandmamma's room
+was, a sudden strange feeling came over me. I felt as if I _must_ see
+her, even if she didn't see me. Her door was ajar.
+
+'Very likely,' I thought, 'she will be writing in there.'
+
+For, lately, I knew she had been there almost entirely, when not
+actually in Cousin Agnes's room, so as to be near her.
+
+'I will peep in,' I said to myself.
+
+I put down what I was carrying and crept round the door noiselessly. At
+first I thought there was no one in the room, then to my surprise I saw
+that the position of the bed had been changed. It now stood with its
+back to the window, but the light of a brightly burning fire fell
+clearly upon it. There was some one in bed! Could it be grandmamma? If
+so, she must be really ill, it was so unlike her ever to stay in bed. I
+stepped forward a little--no, the pale face with the pretty bright hair
+showing against the pillows was not grandmamma, it was some one much
+younger, and with a sort of awe I said to myself it must be Cousin
+Agnes.
+
+So it was, she had been moved into grandmamma's room a day or two before
+for a little change.
+
+It could not have been the sound I made, for I really made none, that
+roused her; it must just have been the _feeling_ that some one had
+entered the room. For all at once she opened her eyes, such very sweet
+blue eyes they were, and looked at me, at first in a half-startled way,
+but then with a little smile.
+
+'I thought I was dreaming,' she whispered. 'I have had such a nice
+sleep. Is that you, little Helena? I'm so glad to see you; I wanted you
+to come before, often.'
+
+I stood there trembling.
+
+What would grandmamma or Mr. Vandeleur think if they came in and found
+me there? But yet Cousin Agnes was so very sweet, her voice so gentle
+and almost loving, that I felt I could not run out of the room without
+answering her.
+
+'Thank you,' I said, 'I do hope you are better.'
+
+'I am going to be better very soon, I feel almost sure,' she said, but
+her voice was already growing weaker. 'Are you going out, dear?' she
+went on. 'Good-bye, I hope you will have a nice walk. Come again to see
+me soon.'
+
+'Thank you,' I whispered again, something in her voice almost making the
+tears come into my eyes, and I crept off as quietly as possible, with a
+curious feeling that if I delayed I should not go at all.
+
+By this time you will have guessed what my plan was. I think I will not
+go into all the particulars of how I made my way to Paddington in a
+hansom, which I picked up just outside the square, and how I managed to
+take my ticket, a third class one this time, for though I had brought
+all my money--a few shillings of my own and a sovereign which Cousin
+Cosmo had sent me for a Christmas box--I saw that care would be needed
+to make it take me to my journey's end. Nor, how at last, late in the
+afternoon, I found myself on the platform at Middlemoor Station.
+
+I was very tired, now that the first excitement had gone off.
+
+'How glad I shall be to get to Windy Gap,' I thought, 'and to be with
+Kezia.'
+
+I opened my purse and looked at my money. There were three shillings and
+some coppers, not enough for a fly, which I knew cost five shillings.
+
+'I can't walk all the way,' I said to myself. 'It's getting so late
+too,' for I had had to wait more than an hour at Paddington for a train.
+
+Then a bright idea struck me. There was an omnibus that went rather more
+than half-way, if only I could get it I should be able to manage. I went
+out of the station and there, to my delight, it stood; by good luck I
+had come by a train which it always met. There were two other passengers
+in it already, but of course there was plenty of room for me and my bag
+and my parcel, so I settled myself in a corner, not sorry to see that my
+companions were perfect strangers to me. It was now about seven in
+the evening, the sky was fast darkening. Off we jogged, going at a
+pretty good pace at first, but soon falling back to a very slow one as
+the road began to mount. I fancy I dozed a little, for the next thing I
+remember was the stopping of the omnibus at the little roadside inn,
+which was the end of its journey.
+
+I got out and paid my fare, and then set off on what was really the
+worst part of the whole, for I was now very tired and my luggage, small
+as it was, seemed to weigh like lead. I might have looked out for a boy
+to carry it for me, but that idea didn't enter my head, and I was very
+anxious not to be noticed by any one who might have known me.
+
+[Illustration: It was all uphill too.--P. 173.]
+
+I seemed to have no feeling now except the longing to be 'at home' and
+with Kezia. I almost forgot why I had come and all about my unhappiness
+in London; but, oh dear! how that mile stretched itself out! It was all
+uphill too; every now and then I was forced to stop for a minute and to
+put down my packages on the ground so as to rest my aching arms, so my
+progress was very slow. It was quite dark when at last I found myself
+stumbling up the bit of steep path which lay between the end of the road
+where Sharley's pony-cart used to wait and our own little garden-gate.
+If I hadn't known my way so well I could scarcely have found it, but at
+last my goal was reached. I stood at the door for a moment or two
+without knocking, to recover my breath, and indeed my wits, a little. It
+all seemed so strange, I felt as if I were dreaming. But soon the fresh
+sweet air, which was almost like native air to me, made me feel more
+like myself--made me realise that here I was again at dear old Windy
+Gap. More than that, I would not let my mind dwell upon, except to think
+over what should be my first words to Kezia.
+
+I knocked at last, and then for the first time I noticed that there was
+a light in the drawing-room shining through the blinds.
+
+'Dear me,' I thought, 'how strange,' and then a terror came over
+me--supposing the house was let to strangers! I had quite forgotten that
+this was possible.
+
+But before I had time to think of what I could in that case do, the door
+was opened.
+
+'Kezia,' I gasped, but looking up, my new fears took shape.
+
+It was not Kezia who stood there, it was a boy; a boy about two or three
+years older than I, not as tall as Gerard Nestor, though strong and
+sturdy looking, and with--even at that moment I thought so to
+myself--the very nicest face I had ever seen. He was sunburnt and ruddy,
+with short dark hair and bright kind-looking eyes, which when he smiled
+seemed to smile too. I daresay I did not see all that just then, but it
+is difficult now to separate my earliest remembrance of him from what I
+noticed afterwards, and there never was, there never has been, anything
+to contradict or confuse the first feeling, or instinct, that he was as
+good and true as he looked, my dear old Harry!
+
+Just now, of course, his face had a very surprised expression.
+
+'Kezia?' he repeated. 'I am sorry she is not in just now.'
+
+It was an immense relief to gather from his words that she was not away.
+
+'Will she be in soon?' I said, eagerly; 'I didn't know there was any one
+else in the house. May I--do you mind--if I come in and wait till Kezia
+returns?'
+
+'Certainly,' said the boy, and as he spoke he stooped to pick up the bag
+and parcel which his quick eyes had caught sight of. 'My brother and I
+are staying here,' he said, as he crossed the little hall to the
+drawing-room door. 'We are alone here except for Kezia; we came here a
+fortnight ago from school, it was broken up because of illness.'
+
+I think he went on speaking out of a sort of friendly wish to set me at
+my ease, and I listened half stupidly, I don't think I quite took in
+what he said. A younger boy was sitting in my own old corner, by the
+window, and a little table with a lamp on it was drawn up beside him.
+
+'Lindsay,' said my guide, and the younger boy, who was evidently very
+well drilled by his brother, started up at once. 'This--this young
+lady,' for by this time he had found out I was a lady in spite of my
+brown paper parcel, 'has come to see Kezia. Put some coal on the fire,
+it's getting very low.'
+
+Lindsay obeyed, eyeing me as he did so. He was smaller and slighter than
+his brother, with fair hair and a rather girlish face.
+
+'Won't you sit down?' said Harry, pushing a chair forward to me.
+
+I was dreadfully tired and very glad to sit down, and now my brain began
+to work a little more quickly. The name 'Lindsay' had started some
+recollection.
+
+'Are you--' I began, 'is your name Vandeleur; are you the boys at school
+with Gerard Nestor?'
+
+'Yes,' said Harry, opening his eyes very wide, 'and--would you mind
+telling me who you are?' he added bluntly.
+
+'I'm Helena Wingfield,' I said. 'This is my home. I have come back
+alone, all the way from London, because----' and I stopped short.
+
+'Because?' repeated Harry, looking at me with his kind, though searching
+eyes. Something in his manner made me feel that I must answer him. He
+was only a boy, not nearly as 'grown-up' in manners or appearance as
+Gerard Nestor; there was something even a little rough about him, but
+still he seemed at once to take the upper hand with me; I felt that I
+must respect him.
+
+'Because--' I faltered, feeling it very difficult to keep from
+crying--'because I was so miserable in London in your--in Cousin Cosmo's
+house. He is my cousin, you know,' I went on, 'though his name is
+different.'
+
+'I know,' said Harry, quietly, 'he's our cousin too, and our guardian.
+But you're better off than we are--you've got your grandmother. I know
+all about you, you see. But how on earth did she let you come away like
+this alone? Or is she--no, she can't be with you, surely?'
+
+'No,' I replied, 'I'm alone, I thought I told you so; and grandmamma
+doesn't know I've come away, of course she wouldn't have let me. Nobody
+does know.'
+
+Harry's face grew very grave indeed, and Lindsay raised himself from
+stooping over the fire, and stood staring at me as if I was something
+very extraordinary.
+
+'Your grandmother doesn't know?' repeated Harry, 'nobody knows? How
+could you come away like that? Why, your grandmother will be nearly out
+of her mind about you!'
+
+'No, she won't,' I replied, 'she doesn't care for me now, it's all quite
+different from what it used to be. Nobody cares for me, they'll only be
+very glad to be rid of the trouble of me.'
+
+The tears had got up into my eyes by this time, and as I spoke they
+began slowly to drop on to my cheeks. Harry saw them, I knew, but I
+didn't feel as if I cared, though I think I wanted him to be sorry for
+me, his kind face looked as if he would be. So I was rather surprised
+when, instead of saying something sympathising and gentle, he answered
+rather abruptly--
+
+'Helena, I don't mean to be rude, for of course it's no business of
+mine, but I think you must know that you are talking nonsense. I don't
+mean about Mr. Vandeleur, or any one but your grandmother; but as for
+saying that she has left off caring for you, that's all--perfectly
+impossible. _I_ know enough for that; you've been with her all your
+life, and she's been most awfully good to you----'
+
+'I know she has,' I interrupted, 'that makes it all the worse to bear.'
+
+'We'll talk about that afterwards,' said Harry, 'it's your grandmother
+you should think of now--what do you mean to do?'
+
+I stared at him, not quite understanding.
+
+'I meant to stay here,' I said, 'with Kezia. If I can't--if you count it
+your house and won't let me stay, I must go somewhere else. But you
+can't stop my staying here till I've seen Kezia.'
+
+Harry gave an impatient exclamation.
+
+'Can't you understand,' he said, 'that I meant what are you going to do
+about letting your grandmother know where you are?'
+
+'I hadn't thought about it,' I said; 'perhaps they won't find out till
+to-morrow morning.'
+
+And then in my indignation I went on to tell him about the lonely life I
+had had lately, ending up with an account of my fall down the stairs
+and what I had overheard about being sent away to school.
+
+'Poor Helena,' said Lindsay.
+
+Harry, too, was sorry for me, I know, but just then he did not say much.
+
+'All the same,' he replied, after listening to me, 'it wouldn't be right
+to risk your grandmother's being frightened, any longer. I'll send a
+telegram at once.'
+
+The village post and telegraph office was only a quarter of a mile from
+our house. Harry turned to leave the room as he spoke.
+
+'Lindsay, you'll look after Helena till I come back,' he said. 'I
+daresay Kezia won't be in for an hour or so.'
+
+I stopped him.
+
+'You mustn't send a telegram without telling me what you are going to
+say,' I said.
+
+He looked at me.
+
+'I shall just put--"Helena is here, safe and well,"' he replied, and to
+this I could not make any reasonable objection.
+
+'I may be safe, but I don't think I am well,' I said grumblingly when he
+had gone. 'I'm starving, to begin with. I've had nothing to eat all day
+except two buns I bought at Paddington Station, and my head's aching
+dreadfully.'
+
+'Oh, dear,' said Lindsay, who was a soft-hearted little fellow, and most
+ready to sympathise, especially in those troubles which he best
+understood, 'you must be awfully hungry. We had our tea some time ago,
+but Kezia always gives us supper. Come into the kitchen and let's see
+what we can find--or no, you're too tired--you stay here and I'll forage
+for you.'
+
+He went off, returning in a few minutes with a jug of milk and a big
+slice of one of Kezia's own gingerbread cakes. I thought nothing had
+ever tasted so good, and my headache seemed to get better after eating
+it and drinking the milk.
+
+I was just finishing when Harry came in again.
+
+'That's right,' he said, 'I forgot that you must be hungry.'
+
+Then we all three sat and looked at each other without speaking.
+
+'Lindsay,' said Harry at last, 'you'd better finish that exercise you
+were doing when Helena came in,' and Lindsay obediently went back to the
+table.
+
+I wanted Harry to speak to me. After all I had told him I thought he
+should have been sorry for me, and should have allowed that I had right
+on my side, instead of letting me sit there in silence. At last I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+'I don't think,' I said, 'that you should treat me as if I were too
+naughty to speak to. I know quite well that you are not at all fond of
+Mr. Vandeleur yourself, and that should make you sorry for me.'
+
+'I suppose you're thinking of what Gerard Nestor said,' Harry replied.
+'It's true I know very little of Mr. Vandeleur, though I daresay he has
+meant to be kind to us. But what I can't make out is how you could treat
+your grandmother so. Lindsay and I have never had any one like what
+she's been to you.'
+
+His words startled me.
+
+'If I had thought,' I began, 'that she would really care--or be
+frightened about me--perhaps I--' but I had no time to say more, there
+came a knock at the front door and Lindsay started up.
+
+'It's Kezia,' he said, 'she locks the back-door when she goes out in the
+evening and we let her in. She's been to church,' so off he flew, eager
+to be the one to give her the news of my unexpected arrival.
+
+But I did not rush out to meet her, as I would have done at first.
+Harry's words had begun to make me a little less sure than I had been as
+to how even Kezia would look upon my conduct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+KEZIA'S COUNSEL
+
+
+The sound of low voices--Lindsay's and Kezia's, followed by an
+exclamation, Kezia's of course--reached Harry and me as we stood there
+in silence looking at each other.
+
+Then the door was pushed open and in hurried my old friend.
+
+'Miss Helena!' she said breathlessly. 'Miss Helena, I could scarce
+believe Master Lindsay! Dear, dear, how frightened your grandmother will
+be!'
+
+I could see that it went against her kindly feelings to receive me by
+blame at the very first, and yet her words showed plainly enough what
+she was thinking.
+
+'Grandmamma will not be frightened,' I said, rather coldly. 'Harry has
+sent her a telegram, and besides--I don't think she would have been
+frightened any way. It's all quite different now, Kezia, you don't
+understand. She's got other people to care for instead of me.'
+
+Kezia took no notice of this.
+
+'Dear, dear!' she said again. 'To think of you coming here alone! I'm
+sure when Master Lindsay met me at the door saying: "Guess who's here,
+Kezia," I never could have--' but here I interrupted her.
+
+'If that's all you've got to say to me I really don't care to hear it,'
+I said, 'but it's a queer sort of welcome. I can't go away to-night, I
+suppose, but I will the very first thing to-morrow morning. I daresay
+they'll take me in at the vicarage, but really--' I broke off
+again--'considering that this is my own home, and--and--that I had no
+one else to go to in all the world except you, Kezia, I do think--' but
+here my voice failed, I burst into tears.
+
+Kezia put her arms round me very kindly.
+
+'Poor dear,' she said, 'whatever mistakes you've made, you must be tired
+to death. Come with me into the dining-room, Miss Helena, there's a
+better fire there, and I'll get you a cup of tea or something, and then
+you must go to bed. Your own room's quite ready, just as you left it.
+Master Lindsay has the little chair-bed in Mr. Harry's room--your
+grandmamma's room, I mean.'
+
+She led me into the dining-room, talking as she went, in this
+matter-of-fact way, to help me to recover myself.
+
+Harry and Lindsay remained behind.
+
+'I have had--some--milk, and a piece of--gingerbread,' I said, between
+my sobs, as Kezia established me in front of the fire in the other room.
+'I don't think I could eat anything else, but I'd like some tea very
+much.'
+
+I shivered in spite of the beautiful big fire close to me.
+
+'You shall have it at once,' said Kezia, hurrying off, 'though it
+mustn't be strong, and I'll make you a bit of toast, too.'
+
+Then I overheard a little bustle in the kitchen, and by the sounds, I
+made out that Harry or Lindsay, or both of them perhaps, were helping
+Kezia in her preparations.
+
+'What nice boys they are,' I thought to myself, and a feeling of shame
+began to come over me that I should have first got to know them when
+acting in a way that they, Harry at least, so evidently thought wrong
+and foolish.
+
+But now that, in spite of her disapproval, I felt myself safe in Kezia's
+care, the restraint I had put upon myself gave way more and more. I sat
+there crying quietly, and when the little tray with tea and a tempting
+piece of hot toast (which Harry's red face showed he had had to do with)
+made its appearance I ate and drank obediently, almost without speaking.
+
+Half an hour later I was in bed in my own little room, Kezia tucking me
+in as she had done so very, very often in my life.
+
+'Now go to sleep, dearie,' she said, 'and think of nothing till
+to-morrow morning, except that when things come to the worst they begin
+to get better.'
+
+And sleep I did, soundly and long. Harry and Lindsay had had their
+breakfast two hours before at least, when I woke, and other things had
+happened. A telegram had come in reply to Harry's, thanking him for it,
+announcing Mr. Vandeleur's arrival that very afternoon, and desiring
+Harry to meet him at Middlemoor Station.
+
+They did not tell me of this; perhaps they were afraid it would have
+made me run off again somewhere else. But when my old nurse brought up
+my breakfast we had a long, long talk together. I told her all that I
+had told Harry the night before, and of course in some ways it was
+easier for her to understand than it had been for him. I could not have
+had a better counsellor. She just put aside all I said about
+grandmamma's not caring for me any longer as simple nonsense; she didn't
+attempt to explain all the causes of my having been left so much to
+myself. She didn't pretend to understand it altogether.
+
+'Your grandmamma will put it all right to you, herself, when she sees
+well to do so,' she said. 'She has just made one mistake, Miss Helena,
+it seems to me--she has credited you with more sense than perhaps should
+be expected of a child.'
+
+I didn't like this, and I felt my cheeks grow red.
+
+'More sense,' repeated Kezia, 'and she has trusted you too much. It
+should have pleased you to be looked on like that, and if you'd been a
+little older it would have done so. The idea that you could think she
+had left off caring for you would have seemed to her simply impossible.
+She has trusted you too much, and you, Miss Helena, have not trusted her
+at all.'
+
+'But you're forgetting, Kezia, what I heard myself, with my own ears,
+about sending me away to school, and how little she seemed to care.'
+
+Kezia smiled, rather sadly.
+
+'My dearie,' she said, 'I have not served Mrs. Wingfield all the years I
+have, not to know her better than that. I daresay you'll never know,
+unless you live to be a mother and grandmother yourself, what the
+thought of parting with you was costing her, at the very time she spoke
+so quietly.'
+
+'But when I fell downstairs,' I persisted, 'she seemed so vexed with me,
+and then--oh! for days and days before that, I had hardly seen her.'
+
+Kezia looked pained.
+
+'Yes, my dear, it must have been hard for you, but harder for your
+grandmamma. There are times in life when all does seem to be going the
+wrong way. And very likely being so very troubled and anxious herself,
+about you as well as about other things, made your grandmamma appear
+less kind than usual.'
+
+Kezia stopped and hesitated a little.
+
+'I think as things are,' she said, 'I can't be doing wrong in telling
+you a little more than you know. I am sure my dear lady will forgive me
+if I make a mistake in doing so, seeing she has not told you more
+herself, no doubt for the best of reasons.'
+
+She stopped again. I felt rather frightened.
+
+'What do you mean, Kezia?' I said.
+
+'It is about Mrs. Vandeleur. Do you know, my dear Miss Helena, that it
+has just been touch and go these last days, if she was to live or die?'
+
+'Oh, Kezia!' I exclaimed; 'no, I didn't know it was as bad as that,' and
+the tears--unselfish, unbitter tears this time--rushed into my eyes as I
+remembered the sweet white face that I had seen in grandmamma's room,
+and the gentle voice that had tried to say something kind and loving to
+me. 'Oh, Kezia, I wish I had known. Do you think it will have hurt her,
+my peeping into the room yesterday?' for I had told my old nurse
+_everything_.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+'No, my dear, I don't think so. She is going to get really better now,
+they feel sure--as sure as it is ever _right_ to feel about such things,
+I mean. Only yesterday morning I had a letter from your grandmamma,
+saying so. She meant to tell you soon, all about the great anxiety there
+had been--once it was over--she had been afraid of grieving and alarming
+you. So, dear Miss Helena, if you had just been patient a _little_
+longer----'
+
+My tears were dropping fast now, but still I was not quite softened.
+
+'All the same, Kezia,' I said, 'they meant to send me to school.'
+
+'Well, my dear, if they had, it might have been really for your
+happiness. You would have been sent nowhere that was not as good and
+nice a school as could be. And, of course, though Mrs. Vandeleur has
+turned the corner in a wonderful way, she will be delicate for
+long--perhaps never quite strong, and the life is lonely for you.'
+
+'I wouldn't mind,' I said, for the sight of sweet Cousin Agnes had made
+me feel as if I would do anything for her. 'I wouldn't mind, if
+grandmamma trusted me, and if I could feel she loved me as much as she
+used. I would do my lessons alone, or go to a day-school or anything, if
+only I felt happy again with grandmamma.'
+
+'My dearie, there is no need for you to feel anything else.'
+
+'Oh yes--there is _now_, even if there wasn't before,' I said,
+miserably. 'Think of what I have done. Even if grandmamma forgave me for
+coming away here, Cousin Cosmo would not--he is _so_ stern, Kezia. He
+really is--you know Harry and Lindsay thought so--Gerard Nestor told us,
+and though Harry won't speak against him, I can see he doesn't care for
+him.'
+
+'Perhaps they have not got to know each other,' suggested Kezia. 'Master
+Harry is a dear boy; but so was Mr. Cosmo long ago--I can't believe his
+whole nature has changed.'
+
+Then another thought struck me.
+
+'Kezia,' I said, 'I think grandmamma might have told me about the boys
+being here. She used to tell me far littler things than that. And in a
+sort of a way I think I had a right to know. Windy Gap is my home.'
+
+'It was all settled in a hurry,' said Kezia. 'The school broke up
+suddenly through some cases of fever, and poor Mr. Vandeleur was much
+put about to know where to send the young gentlemen. He couldn't have
+them in London, with Mrs. Vandeleur so ill, and your grandmamma was very
+glad to have the cottage free, and me here to do for them. No doubt she
+would have told you about it. I'm glad for your sake they are here.
+They'll be nice company for you.'
+
+Her words brought home to me the actual state of things.
+
+'Do you think grandmamma will let me stay here a little?' I said. 'I'm
+afraid she will not--and even if _she_ would, Cousin Cosmo will be so
+angry, _he_'ll prevent it. I am quite sure they will send me to
+school.'
+
+'But what was the use of you coming here then, Miss Helena,' said Kezia,
+sensibly, 'if you knew you would be sent to school after all?'
+
+'Oh,' I said,'I didn't think very much about anything except getting
+away. I--I thought grandmamma would just be glad to be rid of the
+trouble of me, and that they'd leave me here till Mrs. Vandeleur was
+better and grandmamma could come home again.'
+
+Kezia did not answer at once. Then she said--
+
+'Do you dislike London so very much, then, Miss Helena?'
+
+'Oh no,' I replied. 'I was very happy alone with grandmamma, except for
+always thinking they were coming, and fancying she didn't--that she was
+beginning not to care for me. But--I _am_ sorry now, Kezia, for not
+having trusted her.'
+
+'That's right, my dear; and you'll show it by giving in cheerfully to
+whatever your dear grandmamma thinks best for you?'
+
+I was still crying--but quite quietly.
+
+'I'll--I'll try,' I whispered.
+
+When I was dressed I went downstairs, not sorry to feel I should find
+the boys there. And in spite of the fears as to the future that were
+hanging over me I managed to spend a happy day with them. They did
+everything they could to cheer me up, and the more I saw of Harry the
+more I began to realise how very, very much brighter a life mine had
+been than his--how ungrateful I had been and how selfish. It was worse
+for him than for Lindsay, who was quite a child, and who looked to Harry
+for everything. And yet Harry made no complaints--he only said once or
+twice, when we were talking about grandmamma, that he did wish she was
+_their_ grandmother, too.
+
+'Wasn't that old lady you lived with before like a grandmother?' I
+asked.
+
+Harry shook his head.
+
+'We scarcely ever saw her,' he said. 'She was very old and ill, and even
+when we did go to her for the holidays we only saw her to say
+good-morning and good-night. On the whole we were glad to stay on at
+school.'
+
+Poor fellows--they had indeed been orphans.
+
+We wandered about the little garden, and all my old haunts. But for my
+terrible anxiety, I should have enjoyed it thoroughly.
+
+'Harry,' I said, when we had had our dinner--a very nice dinner, by the
+bye. I began to think grandmamma must have got rich, for there was a
+feeling of prosperity about the cottage--fires in several rooms, and
+everything so comfortable. 'Harry, what do you think I should do? Should
+I write to grandmamma and tell her--that I am very sorry, and that--that
+I'll be good about going to school, if she fixes to send me?'
+
+The tears came back again, but still I said it firmly.
+
+'I think,' said Harry, 'you had better wait till to-morrow.'
+
+He did not tell me of Mr. Vandeleur's telegram--for he had been desired
+not to do so. I should have been still more uneasy and nervous if I had
+known my formidable cousin was actually on his way to Middlemoor!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+'HAPPY EVER SINCE'
+
+
+Later in the afternoon--about three o'clock or so--Harry looked at his
+watch and started up. We were sitting in the drawing-room talking
+quietly--Harry had been asking me about my lessons and finding out how
+far on I was, for I was a little tired still, and we had been running
+about a good deal in the morning.
+
+'Oh,' I said, in a disappointed tone, 'where are you going? If you would
+wait a little while, I could come out with you again, I am sure.' For I
+felt as if I did not want to lose any of the time we were together, and
+of course I did not know how soon grandmamma might not send some one to
+take me away to school.
+
+And never since Sharley and the others had gone away had I had the
+pleasure of companions of my own age. There was something about Harry
+which reminded me of Sharley, though he was a boy--something so strong
+and straightforward and _big_, no other word seems to say it so well.
+
+Harry looked at me with a little smile. Dear Harry, I know now that he
+was feeling even more anxious about me than I was for myself, and that
+brave as he was, it took all his courage to do as he had determined--I
+mean to plead my cause with his stern guardian. For Mr. Vandeleur was
+almost as much a stranger to him as to me.
+
+'I'm afraid I must,' he said, 'I have to go to Middlemoor, but I shall
+not be away more than an hour and a half. Lindsay--you'll look after
+Helena, and Helena will look after you and prevent you getting into
+mischief while I'm away.'
+
+For though Lindsay was a very good little boy, and not wild or rough, he
+was rather unlucky. I never saw any one like him for tumbling and
+bumping himself and tearing his clothes.
+
+After Harry had gone, Lindsay got out their stamp album and we amused
+ourselves with it very well for more than an hour, as there were a good
+many new stamps to put into their proper places. Then Kezia came in--
+
+'Miss Helena,' she said, 'would you and Master Lindsay mind going into
+the other room? I want to tidy this one up a little, I was so long
+talking with you this morning that I dusted it rather hurriedly.'
+
+We had made a litter, certainly, with the gum-pot and scraps of paper,
+and cold water for loosening the stamps, but we soon cleared it up.
+
+'Isn't it nearly tea-time?' I said.
+
+'Yes, you shall have it as soon as Master Harry comes in,' said Kezia,
+'it is all laid in the dining-room.'
+
+'Oh, well,' said Lindsay, 'we won't do any more stamps this afternoon;
+come along then, Helena, we'll tell each other stories for a change.'
+
+'You may tell me stories,' I said--'and I'll try to listen,' I added to
+myself, 'though I don't feel as if I could,' for as the day went on I
+felt myself growing more and more frightened and uneasy. 'I wish Harry
+would come in,' I said aloud, 'I think I should write to grandmamma
+to-day.'
+
+'He won't be long,' said Lindsay, 'Harry always keeps to his time,' and
+then he began his stories. I'm afraid I don't remember what they were.
+There were a great many 'you see's' and 'and so's,' but at another time
+I daresay I would have found them interesting.
+
+He was just in the middle of one, about a trick some of the boys had
+played an undermaster at their school, when I heard the front door open
+quietly and steps cross the hall. The steps were of more than one
+person, though no one was speaking.
+
+'Stop, Lindsay,' I said, and I sat bolt up in my chair and listened.
+
+Whoever it was had gone into the drawing-room. Then some one came out
+again and crossed to the kitchen.
+
+'Can it be Harry?' I said.
+
+'There's some one with him if it is,' said Lindsay.
+
+I felt myself growing white, and Lindsay grew red with sympathy. He _is_
+a very feeling boy. But we both sat quite still. Then the door opened
+gently, and some one looked in, but it wasn't Harry, it was Kezia.
+
+'Miss Helena, my love,' she said, 'there's some one in the drawing-room
+who wants to see you.'
+
+'Who is it?' I asked, breathlessly, but my old nurse shook her head.
+
+'You'll see,' she said.
+
+My heart began to beat with the hope--a silly, wild hope it was, for of
+course I might have known she could not yet have left Cousin Agnes--that
+it might be grandmamma. And, luckily perhaps, for without it I should
+not have had courage to enter the drawing-room, this idea lasted till I
+had opened the door, and it was too late to run away.
+
+How I did wish I could do so you will easily understand, when I tell you
+that the tall figure standing looking out of the window, which turned as
+I came in, was that of my stern Cousin Cosmo himself!
+
+I must have got very white, I think, though it seemed to me as if all
+the blood in my body had rushed up into my head and was buzzing away
+there like lots and lots of bees, but I only remember saying 'Oh!' in a
+sort of agony of fear and shame. And the next thing I recollect was
+finding myself on a chair and Cousin Cosmo beside me on another, and,
+wonderful to say, he was holding my hand, which had grown dreadfully
+cold, in one of his. His grasp felt firm and protecting. I shut my eyes
+just for a moment and fancied to myself that it seemed as if papa were
+there.
+
+'But it can't last,' I thought, 'he's going to be awfully angry with me
+in a minute.'
+
+I did not speak. I sat there like a miserable little criminal, only
+judges don't generally hold prisoners' hands when they are going to
+sentence them to something very dreadful, do they? I might have thought
+of that, but I didn't. I just squeezed myself together to bear whatever
+was coming.
+
+This was what came.
+
+I heard a sort of sigh or a deep breath, and then a voice, which it
+almost seemed to me I had never heard before, said, very, very gently--
+
+'My poor little girl--poor little Helena. Have I been such an ogre to
+you?'
+
+I could _scarcely_ believe my ears--to think that it was Cousin Cosmo
+speaking to me in that way! I looked up into his face; I had really
+never seen it very well before. And now I found out that the dark,
+deep-set eyes were soft and not stern--what I had taken for hardness and
+severity had, after all, been mostly sadness and anxiety, I think.
+
+'Cousin Cosmo,' I said, 'are you going to forgive me, then? And
+grandmamma, too? _I am_ sorry for running away, but I didn't understand
+properly. I will go to school whenever you like, and not grumble.'
+
+My tears were dropping fast, but still I felt strangely soothed.
+
+'Tell me more about it all,' said Mr. Vandeleur. 'I want to understand
+from yourself all about the fancies and mistakes there have been in your
+head.'
+
+'Would you first tell me,' I said, 'how Cousin Agnes is? It was a good
+deal about her I didn't understand?'
+
+'Much, much better,' he replied, 'thank God. She is going to be almost
+well again, I hope.'
+
+And then, before I knew what I was about, I found myself in the middle
+of it all--telling him everything--the whole story of my unhappiness,
+more fully even than I had told it to Harry and Kezia, for though he did
+not say much, the few words he put in now and then showed me how
+wonderfully he understood. (Cousin Cosmo _is_ a very clever man.)
+
+And when at last I left off speaking, _he_ began and talked to me for a
+long time. I could never tell if I tried, _how_ he talked--so kindly,
+and nicely, and rightly--putting things in the right way, I mean, not
+making out it was _all_ my fault, which made me far sorrier than if he
+had laid the whole of the blame on me.
+
+I always do feel like that when people, especially big people, are
+generous in that sort of way. One thing Cousin Cosmo said at the end
+which I must tell.
+
+'We have a good deal to thank Harry for,' it was, 'both you and I,
+Helena. But for his manly, sensible way of judging the whole, we might
+never have got to understand each other, as I trust we now always shall.
+And more good has come out of it, too. I have never known Harry for what
+_he_ is, before to-day.'
+
+'I am so very glad,' I said.
+
+'Now,' said Mr. Vandeleur, looking at his watch, 'it is past five
+o'clock. I shall spend the night at the hotel at Middlemoor, but I
+should like to stay with you three here, as late as possible. Do you
+think your good Kezia can give me something to eat?'
+
+'Of course she can,' I said, all my hospitable feelings awakened--for I
+can never feel but that Windy Gap is my particular home--'Shall I go and
+ask her? Our tea must be ready now in the dining-room.'
+
+'That will do capitally,' said Cousin Cosmo. 'I'll have a cup of tea now
+with you three, in the first place, and then as long as the daylight
+lasts you must show me the lions of Windy Gap, Helena. It _is_ a quaint
+little place,' he added, looking round, 'and I am sure it must have a
+great charm of its own, but I am afraid my aunt and you must have found
+it very cold and exposed in bad weather?'
+
+'Sometimes,' I said; 'the last winter here was pretty bad.'
+
+'Yes,' he answered, 'it is not a place for the middle of winter,' but
+that was all he said.
+
+I was turning to leave the room when another thought struck me.
+
+'Cousin Cosmo,' I asked timidly, 'will grandmamma want me to go to
+school very soon?'
+
+He smiled, rather a funny smile.
+
+'Put it out of your mind till I go back to London, and talk things
+over,' he replied. 'I want all of us to be as happy as possible this
+evening. Send Harry in here for a moment.'
+
+I met Harry outside in the hall.
+
+'Is it all right?' he said, anxiously.
+
+'Oh, Harry,' I said, 'I can scarcely believe he's the same! He's been so
+awfully kind.'
+
+That evening _was_ a very happy one. Cousin Cosmo was interested about
+everything at Windy Gap, and after supper he talked to Harry and me of
+all sorts of things, and promised to send us down some books, which
+pleased me, as it did seem as if he must mean me to stay where I was
+for a few days at any rate.
+
+Still, I did not feel, of course, quite at rest till I had written a
+long, long letter to grandmamma and heard from her in return. I need not
+repeat all she said about what had passed--it just made me feel more
+than ever ashamed of having doubted her and of having been so selfish.
+
+But what she said at the end of her letter about the plans she and
+Cousin Cosmo had been making was almost too delightful. I could scarcely
+help jumping with joy when I read it.
+
+'Harry,' I called out, 'I'm not to go to school at all, just fancy! I'm
+to stay here with you and Lindsay till you go back to school--till a few
+days before, I mean, and we're to travel to London together and be all
+at Chichester Square. Cousin Agnes and grandmamma are going away to the
+sea-side now immediately, but they'll be back before we come. Cousin
+Agnes is so much better!'
+
+Harry did not look quite as pleased as I was--about the London part of
+it.
+
+'I'm awfully glad you're going to stay here,' he answered; 'and I do
+want to see your grandmother. I suppose it'll be all right,' he went
+on, 'and that they won't find Lindsay and me a nuisance in London.'
+
+I was almost vexed with him.
+
+'Harry,' I said, 'don't _you_ begin to be fanciful. You don't _know_ how
+Cousin Cosmo spoke of you the other day.'
+
+And after all it did come all right. My story finishes up like a
+fairy-tale--'They lived happy ever after!'
+
+Well no, not quite that, for it is not yet four years since all this
+happened, and four years would be a very short 'ever after.'
+
+But I may certainly say we have lived most happily ever since that time
+till now.
+
+Cousin Agnes is much, much better. She never will be quite strong--never
+a very strong person, I mean. But she is _so_ sweet, our boys and I
+often think we should scarcely like her to be any different in any way
+from what she is, though of course not really ill or suffering.
+
+And 'our boys'--yes, that is what they are--dear brothers to me, just
+like real ones, and just like grandsons to dear, dear grandmamma. They
+come to Chichester Square regularly for their holidays--it is their
+'new home,' as it is mine. But we have another home--and it is not much
+of the holidays except the Christmas ones that we--grandmamma and we
+three--spend in London.
+
+For Windy Gap is still ours--and Kezia lives there and is always ready
+to have us--and Cousin Cosmo has built on two or three more rooms, and
+our summers there are just _perfect_!
+
+The Nestors came back to Moor Court long ago, and I see almost as much
+of them as in the old days, as they now come to their London house every
+year for some months, and we go to several classes together, though I
+have a daily governess as well.
+
+Next year Sharley is to 'come out.' Just fancy! I am sure every one will
+think her very pretty. But not many can know as well as I do that her
+face only tells a very small part of her beauty. She is so very, very
+good.
+
+I daresay you will wonder how Cousin Cosmo--grave, stern Cousin
+Cosmo--likes it all. His quiet solemn house the home of three adopted
+children, who are certainly not solemn, and not always 'quiet' by any
+means.
+
+I can only tell you that he said to grandmamma not very long ago, and
+she told me, and I told Harry--that he had 'never been so happy since he
+was a boy himself,' all but a son to her and a brother to 'Paul'--that
+was my father, you know.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My New Home, by Mary Louisa Molesworth
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