path: root/64258-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64258 ***

THE MEAN-WELLS


[Illustration: “GEOFFREY EXAMINED THE BOX.”
                                                Page 5.]




  THE MEAN-WELLS

  BY
  MABEL QUILLER-COUCH

  AUTHOR OF “THE CARROL GIRLS,” “TROUBLESOME URSULA,”
  “A PAIR OF REDPOLLS,” “KITTY TRENIRE,” ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED BY
  G. E. ROBERTSON

  LONDON

  WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO. LTD.
  3 & 4, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.
  AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W.

[Illustration]




  TO

  _LILY_

  IN REMEMBRANCE




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                               PAGE

     I. THE WORTH OF A TOOTH                             1

    II. A DRIVE AND A PINK PARASOL                       9

   III. ON THE ROAD TO LANTIG                           19

    IV. A ROOMFUL OF BABIES, AND A GIANT’S CHAIR        26

     V. SWEEPING THE DRAWING-ROOM                       39

    VI. MRS. TICKELL, MRS. WALL, AND AN ACCIDENT        48

   VII. LOVEDAY GOES VISITING                           60

  VIII. PISKIES STILL LIVE AT PORTHCALLIS               70

    IX. MISS POTTS COMES TO TEA                         81

     X. THE FAIRY RING                                  92

    XI. LOVEDAY AND AARON PLAY AT BEING PISKIES        105

   XII. THE PISKIES CAUGHT                             115

  XIII. PRISCILLA PAYS A CALL AND TAKES A JOURNEY      126

   XIV. PRISCILLA PAYS ANOTHER CALL                    137

    XV. MR. WINTER                                     145

   XVI. IN WHICH A GREAT MANY THINGS HAPPEN            154




ILLUSTRATIONS


  “GEOFFREY EXAMINED THE BOX”                             _Frontispiece_

  “THE GIANT’S FOOTSTOOL”                                _To face p._ 34

  “‘I’LL TAKE THOMAS,’ SHE SAID”                              ”       64

  “A BIG CATCH OF CRABS AND LOBSTERS”                         ”       72

  “DON’T LET US LOOK ANY MORE”                                ”       96

  “THEY SHOOK OUT THEIR PINAFORES OVER THE DIZZY HEIGHTS”     ”      114

  “PRISCILLA SLIPPED OUT EASILY”                              ”      144

  “THEY WOULD LIGHT A FIRE AND BOIL THE KETTLE”               ”      154




THE MEAN-WELLS




CHAPTER I

THE WORTH OF A TOOTH


It did seem very unjust, and the more they thought of it the more
unjust it seemed, especially to Priscilla.

“When I had a tooth pulled out no one gave me anything,” she grumbled;
“but Loveday has a shilling given her for hers, and some sweets, and
such a fuss made.”

“I only had sixpence, and mine was a double tooth,” said Geoffrey
thoughtfully, “and I am a boy.”

“I don’t see that being a boy ought to make any difference,” retorted
Priscilla; “boys’ teeth don’t hurt more than girls’, and boys ought to
be able to bear it better.”

“Oh, but boys always have more in--in comparison, just as men do.”

“Do they?” asked Priscilla thoughtfully. “I wonder why? I think it
ought to be just the other way, ’cause boys and men are stronger.”

“Oh, you’ll understand some day,” said Geoffrey loftily; “you are too
young now.”

There had been great excitement in the house that afternoon. Loveday
had been having toothache frequently for some time. Whenever she drank
anything hot or cold, or ate anything sweet, or put a lollipop in her
mouth, her tooth had begun to jump and ache; and as she was generally
doing one or the other, or wanting to, Loveday’s life lately had not
been a bed of roses, any more than had the lives of those who had to
relieve her pain and stop her sobs. So at last her father had decided
that the tooth must go. It was slightly loose already and decayed, and
Loveday was assured that she would know no comfort while it remained in
her mouth; but if it was taken away another would soon grow, they told
her, and she was promised some sweets and a shilling when the operation
was over, if she bore it bravely.

Loveday had to think the matter over a little before she gave her
consent, for though she hated having pain and not being allowed to eat
sweets, she did like to have a wobbly tooth, one that she could move
with her tongue, and she had hoped that if she waited a little while it
would not hurt her when it wobbled.

But her father told her that that was very unlikely, and that if she
did not have it taken out now it would fall out some day soon, perhaps
while she was asleep, and then there would be danger of its choking her.

“If it felled out should I have a shilling and sweets, father?” she
asked.

But father, without any hesitation, said:

“Oh dear, no--certainly not.”

So Loveday consented to the operation. She wanted the shilling to buy a
paint-box with, and she wanted to see the tooth.

Then began a great bustle. One servant ran for a tumbler of warm
water, and another for a towel and different things, and they looked
at Loveday so pityingly that she began to wonder if it would be very
dreadful after all, and grew quite frightened. Then her father came in,
and perched her on the table, and told her to open her mouth and let
him see which tooth it was; and before she knew he had even seen which
was the right one, she felt a little tweak, and it was out! She did not
cry, for as soon as the pain began it was over, before she could even
make a sound, or screw out a tear; and then, when she realised what had
happened, every one was petting and praising her, and calling her a
brave little heroine, and Nurse gave her a box of chocolates, and her
father gave her a shilling, and her mother an extra penny because she
had not made any noise. Priscilla thought it the easiest and quickest
way of earning pocket-money that she had ever dreamed of--much easier
than catching snails or pulling weeds.

The extraction itself was far too quickly over to please Geoffrey and
Priscilla, who had been standing by the table, looking on. Priscilla
had covered her ears that she might not hear Loveday’s screams, and,
after all, Loveday had not screamed; and having closed her eyes
too--for when it came to the most exciting moment she felt she could
not look--Priscilla had missed everything, and when she unstopped one
ear a little to hear if the screams had begun, she heard Loveday saying
quite calmly:

“Thank you. Now I want my paint-box. Geoffrey, go and buy it for me at
once, please.”

And when Priscilla looked, Loveday was proudly handing to Geoffrey the
new shilling she had just earned.

It had been arranged beforehand that if she won it, Geoffrey should run
at once and buy her a box of paints with it.

So, finding that all the excitement was over, Priscilla decided to go
with Geoffrey to buy the paints, and it was while they were on their
way to the shop that the sense of injustice began to grow in her
small breast, and it grew and grew until, as she stood in Miss Potts’
toy-shop and gazed about her, she felt that at least two of the toys
she saw there were hers by right, for she had had out two teeth, and
one had hurt her very much. Geoffrey had not, of course, such deep
cause of complaint, for he had accepted the sixpence gladly, and if
he did not stick out for more at the time he could not very well say
anything now.

“And what kind of paints is it you want, Master Geoffrey?” asked Miss
Potts pleasantly when he had told her what he had come for.

Most of her customers--and they were not numerous--were penny-toy
customers, so she was very anxious to oblige her larger purchasers when
she did get any. Not but what she was polite and kind to every one who
entered her little shop; she did not know how to be anything else.

“It’s a shilling box I want, please,” said Geoffrey, as though such a
purchase was quite a small matter to him, and jingling in his pocket
all the while the shilling and a French halfpenny of his own. “I want
_Sans Poison_, please,” he added--he pronounced it in the English way,
so that it sounded like “Sands Poison”--“because then Loveday can’t
harm herself if she swallows some. She always will lick her brush, and
it’s no use trying to stop her.”

Miss Potts, in common with the children, felt the greatest respect and
faith in that mysterious person “Sans,” who, according to their belief,
had discovered how to make paints that any child might swallow and not
die.

“I’d never buy anybody else’s for Miss Loveday, if I were you, sir,”
said Miss Potts solemnly. “You see, he guarantees them harmless, and we
have proved them to be so, and ’tisn’t likely that now he’s made his
reputation he’d risk it by selling others. But there’s no knowing what
other folks will put in theirs; I wouldn’t trust them.”

Geoffrey agreed gravely, while he examined the box to see that the
brushes and saucers were in perfect order. He was five years older than
Loveday, and felt at least twenty.

Priscilla, who had been wandering about the shop, eagerly examining its
treasures, came up to the counter.

“Miss Potts,” she asked very gravely, “don’t you think that if a double
tooth is worth a shilling, a single one is worth sixpence?”

“I dare say you’re right, dearie,” said Miss Potts kindly, “but I never
found mine worth anything, not even for chewing.”

“Did you have some once?” asked Priscilla, in genuine astonishment. The
question was excusable, for she had never seen Miss Potts with even
one.

Miss Potts, quite unembarrassed, laughed good-temperedly.

“Why, yes, dearie, of course I had; but I was glad enough to get rid of
them, I can assure you.”

“So should I be if I could get a shilling for each;” and Priscilla
began to count her teeth, to find out what wealth might be hers. “Do
you think I shall have none some day?” she asked eagerly.

“Oh dear no, missie; I don’t suppose so. You’ll be looked after too
well for that.”

Priscilla grew thoughtful.

“I do think, though, that two teeth ought to be worth a--a----”

She looked around the shop to see what she could choose out of all
that was there. It was very difficult, and Geoffrey, having finished
examining a top that had caught his fancy, began to grow impatient.

“Come along, Prissy,” he said impatiently; “you know Loveday will be
waiting for us,” and he strolled to the door.

“I shall ask father if I may have a hoop,” said Priscilla to Miss
Potts. “I don’t think that’s too much. There were two teeth, and both
hurt a lot, and oh, how they bled! You never saw such a thing! Much
more than Loveday’s! But every one pets Loveday so,” she added, in a
confidential tone, “because she is the youngest. They always say, ‘Ah,
but she is the baby!’ But she isn’t; she is nearly seven years old, and
babies aren’t babies when they are as old as that, are they?”

“Well, dear, you see folks always think a lot of the youngest,” said
Miss Potts gently.

Priscilla nodded her head very soberly.

“They do!” she said gravely, “and of the eldest, too, I think.
Yesterday when granny gave Geoffrey a book and didn’t give me one, she
said it was given to Geoffrey because he was the eldest. I don’t think
it is very nice to be an in-between, do you, Miss Potts?”

“I don’t know, dear,” said Miss Potts, with a deep sigh. “I’d be glad
to be anything if only I’d got some brothers and sisters.”

“Miss Potts, didn’t you ever have any?” Priscilla was standing at the
end of the counter, gazing up at the tall, thin woman behind it. Miss
Potts was certainly a very interesting person, she thought--so much
seemed to have happened in her life. Miss Potts shook her head, and
passed her hand across her eyes.

“I had them, Miss Priscilla,” she said softly, “but I’m the only one
left.”

“I am very sorry,” said Priscilla, in a tone of sympathy. “It must be
dreadfully sad for you; I hope you didn’t mind my asking.” Then, after
a moment’s pause, “I’ll be your sister, if you would like me to, Miss
Potts. Of course, I couldn’t live with you always, but----”

“I wonder what your pa and ma would say to that, dear,” said Miss
Potts, half laughing, half crying. “It is very kind of you to think
of it, I’m sure, but I reckon you’ve got brothers and sisters enough
already.”

“Well, anyhow I can come in very often to see you. That will make it
seem a _little_ less lonely, won’t it? And-- Oh, there’s Geoffrey
running away. I _must_ go, because I want to see Loveday unwrap her
paint-box. I wonder if she will let me use it too. I think she might,
considering. There are two brushes, aren’t there? and she can’t use
both at once. Good-bye, Miss Potts. I will come again soon. O Geoffrey,
you are mean! You might as well wait, when you know I am hurrying as
fast as ever I can.”




CHAPTER II

A DRIVE AND A PINK PARASOL


When Geoffrey and Priscilla got back, they found Loveday seated at the
dining-room table, with a newspaper spread before her, to protect the
table-cloth, a glass of water and a piece of white rag beside her, and
before her an old bound volume of _Little Folks_, already open at the
picture she had selected to paint. Close at her hand lay a little screw
of white paper containing her tooth. She was all in readiness to begin,
and very impatient at what she considered their long delay.

“I do think you might have hurried,” she said, in an injured tone,
“when you knew that I was not at all well.”

“What is the matter? You are all right now the tooth is out,” said
Geoffrey teasingly.

“No, I am not. Look at the great hole between my teefs; it’s ’normous!
I can put all my tongue in, nearly.”

“Well, don’t put any paint in, or you might die,” said Priscilla.
“Loveday, dear, don’t you think I had better paint for you, while you
look on?”

“No, I don’t,” said Loveday, who usually said exactly what she thought.
“Geoffrey has got ‘sans poison’ paints, and I’ve got a piece of rag to
wipe my brushes on, and I am waiting to begin.”

“Well, I think you are very greedy,” said Priscilla rather unjustly.

“No, I am not, I’ve been ill,” explained Loveday, looking up with a
grave face and wide blue eyes full of reproach; “and when peoples are
ill they are ’lowed to do what they like.”

“I don’t think you are ill. I think you are only greedy. I don’t call
having just one tooth out being ill; but you make so much fuss about
everything.”

“You don’t know how much it hurt me,” said Loveday, returning quite
calmly to the mixing of her paints, her short golden curls falling all
about her little flushed face. “It was--oh, it was somefin’ dreadful!”

“It couldn’t have been so very bad, or you would have screamed, I
know;” and with this parting shot Priscilla walked away.

“Aren’t you going to watch me paint?” called Loveday anxiously.

“No, I am not,” said Priscilla shortly. She was feeling cross and
dissatisfied, and she knew she was behaving unkindly, which did not
help her to feel happier. Geoffrey had disappeared since he brought
back the paint-box, and Priscilla felt dull and miserable; she could
not think of anything she wanted to do. First of all she wandered up to
the nursery, but it looked lonely, so she quickly came out again, and,
strolling downstairs, went out into the yard.

The afternoon sun was shining hotly, right down into the yard, bringing
out the beautiful scents of the mignonette and lemon-verbena in
the box on the kitchen window-sill, and the aromatic smell of the
scenty-leaved geranium. On the ground underneath the window stood
several very large fuchsias in pots; their branches hung thickly with
pendent graceful blossoms like little dancers, some in pink frocks with
white petticoats, others in white frocks with pink petticoats, while
others, again, had scarlet frocks with purple petticoats.

All the plants belonged to Ellen, the cook, who had a perfect passion
for flowers and growing plants. One of the greatest offences the
children could commit was to break or injure any of her treasures in
any way.

Ellen was leaning out of the window now, admiring her beloved plants,
smoothing over the earth with her fingers, and tidying away any dead
leaves, and all the time she was doing it she talked to the plants just
as though they could hear her and understand. She picked a leaf of the
scenty geranium and offered it to Priscilla, who took it gratefully,
for she loved the scent, and Ellen was not often so generous.

It was too hot in the yard to remain there long, and too dull, so
Priscilla presently wandered away to the orchard beyond. The orchard
was on the slope of the hill at the back of the house, and was full of
very old apple-trees. Each of the children had a favourite tree, and
a favourite seat in it. Priscilla clambered up to hers, and sat there
for a few moments, sniffing at her geranium leaf and looking about her
rather disconsolately; it was so stupid and uninteresting to be there
alone, yet nothing else seemed worth doing by herself, and what had
become of Geoffrey she did not know.

“I don’t wonder Miss Potts is sorry she has no brothers or sisters; it
must be dreadful to be always without any. I wonder how little ‘only’
girls and boys play? They can’t ever have such nice games as we have.”

She sat up amongst the branches, gazing down through the shady trees,
pondering over this matter and sniffing at her leaf; and all her life
after, the scent of those geraniums brought back to her mind the sunny
day, Loveday’s tooth-pulling, Miss Potts, the old orchard, and the
serious mood she was in there.

Presently the sound of horses’ hoofs on rough cobble-stones reached
her. “That must be Betsy being harnessed,” she murmured, beginning at
once to climb down; “I wonder if father is going out?”

Priscilla’s love of horses was, then and always, one of the passions of
her life, and of all horses Betsy was the queen. She hurried through
the orchard now to speak to Betsy, and to see what was happening. In
the yard she found Hocking, their man, wheeling the carriage out of the
coach-house, and Betsy standing, partly harnessed, looking on. At the
sound of Priscilla’s step she looked around, and Priscilla, running to
her, embraced one of her legs and kissed her soft warm shoulder.

“You dear!” she said, laying her cheek against the old horse, patting
her with little loving pats, and Betsy lowered her head and looked at
her little mistress in a motherly way.

While Priscilla stood there her father came out to place a
medicine-case in the carriage.

“Hullo, little woman,” he said. “What are you doing? Nothing! That’s a
dull way of passing your time. Would you like to come with me?”

“Oh!” cried Priscilla, unclasping Betsy and clasping her own small
hands in rapture, “may I?”

“Yes, if you like. I am going to Lantig, but I shall be back by
tea-time. Hurry in, then, and get ready, and don’t spend an age over
your toilet.”

Priscilla laughed delightedly, and flew up to her room. As she passed
in and up the stairs, she heard Loveday’s shrill little voice calling
to her:

“Prissy, Prissy, _do_ come here! Oh, I do want some one to watch me
paint! Just look what I’ve done!”

“Can’t stay,” shouted back Priscilla. “I am going to Lantig with
father, and he told me to hurry.”

“Well, somebody _ought_ to stay with me when I’m an--an invalid,”
declared Loveday, in an aggrieved tone.

“Where is mother?”

“Out.”

“Oh, well, she’ll be in soon. Go out to the kitchen and show your
pictures to Ellen;” and on she ran.

The children had not a real nurse now; Dr. and Mrs. Carlyon were not
wealthy people, and when the children were no longer babies Mrs.
Carlyon had felt that she must, if possible, manage with only two
maid-servants. But Nurse was so fond of her “babies,” as she called
them, that she asked to stay on as nurse-housemaid, in the place of
Prudence, the housemaid, who was just leaving to be married, and she
did so, to the delight and comfort of every one.

Priscilla did not call Nurse now to help her to get ready; she was
learning to do a great many things for herself, and her toilet was a
very simple one. She passed a brush vigorously over her curls, replaced
her sun-hat, plunged her hands into the jug--it was too heavy for her
to lift--rubbed the dirt off on the towel, slipped on a clean holland
coat, which she found in the drawer, and ran down again.

Loveday was standing at the dining-room door, with a paint-brush in
one hand and a cake of paint in the other; her face was streaked with
paints of different colours.

“I want to go for a drive too. Shall I?” she asked eagerly, when she
saw Priscilla.

“No,” said Priscilla, “you can’t.” Then she suddenly remembered Miss
Potts, who was an “only,” and how she longed for a little sister like
Loveday, and how dreadful it would be to be without her, and quite
suddenly her mood changed, and all her ill-temper vanished.

“We will ask father,” she said; “I expect he will say ‘Yes.’”

But father did not say “Yes” at once; he thought it would be better for
her not to go.

“It would be very bad for you, dear, if you got a cold in that
tooth----”

“But I will leave it at home,” pleaded Loveday eagerly, “on the
mantelpiece, and wrapped up.”

“I did not mean the tooth itself, you monkey; I meant the place where
it came out from.”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut as tight as tight can be, and put my
handkerchief up to hold it all the time.”

“I should think if she had a shawl round her face she would not take
cold,” said Priscilla, with the old-fashioned motherly air she wore
sometimes.

“Very well, let Miss Persistency come,” said Dr. Carlyon, laughing,
“only Nurse had better take some of that paint off her face first, or
the people in Lantig will think I am bringing a wild Indian to the
village.”

Loveday shrieked with delight.

“Oh, I wish they would!” she cried, jumping about with excitement.
“Then I’d scream and growl and frighten them so, they would all run
away from me, and--and----”

“If you scream you will get the cold air in that sore gum of yours,”
said the doctor warningly, “and then we shall have you screaming on the
other side of your mouth.”

Loveday stood for a moment thinking very seriously, and moving her
mouth from side to side.

“I can’t do it on only one side,” she announced, with an air of
disappointment. “I scream with all my mouth at once. Daddy, tell me how
to.”

“Oh dear, no; we don’t want to have you practising screaming all day
long. Besides, I couldn’t now; why, I haven’t done such a thing since I
was a boy! Now fly! If you are not ready in five minutes I shall have
to start without you.”

Loveday vanished in a flash, shouting for “Nurse! Nurse!” all the way
she ran.

“Quick, quick, Nurse! Do hurry!” they heard her calling frantically.
“Dress me quickly; I am going with daddy, and he won’t wait more than
a minute;” and then they heard Nurse running, as most people did run
when Loveday called.

In a very short time she appeared again, with a dainty pink shawl
pinned about her neck and mouth, and in her hand a little pink parasol
with white may-blossom all over it.

“It matches my shawl, Nurse said,” she explained gravely, “and the
shawl _is_ rather hot, so I thought I’d bring this to keep me cool.
I do think it is so lovely,” she went on, gazing admiringly at the
parasol--which was just a size larger than her hat--and particularly at
the handle, which had a little bunch of red egglets at the top.

It certainly was a pretty little thing; it had been a birthday present,
and when it came had filled Loveday with joy and Priscilla with longing
that her birthday could be changed from December to May, which was
Loveday’s month.

“Now jump up,” said Dr. Carlyon. “Hocking is waiting to fasten you in.”

Hocking lifted up Loveday, but Priscilla climbed up by herself, and
seated herself outside Loveday, and then Hocking passed the strap
around them, and fastened them in safely.

“I don’t think I need be strapped in,” said Priscilla. “I am old enough
now not to have it.”

“Better to be fastened in than to be falling out,” said Hocking, who
never spoke unless he was obliged to, and then never a word more than
he could help. It did not matter much, for he never said anything but
the most foolish things, though he always spoke with an air of the
greatest wisdom. Before Priscilla could say any more Dr. Carlyon came
out and got up beside the children, for he was going to drive himself,
and Hocking was to be left behind. Priscilla was very glad of that. She
did not dislike Hocking, but she liked best to drive without him. She
found it very hard sometimes to think of things to say to him.

Then at last they started, and drove away up through the street, where
nearly every one had a nod or a smile for them, or a touch of the hat
or a word to say. The sun was shining brightly, and the air was so
clear that when they reached the top of the hill some distance out in
the country they could see for miles. In one direction, but very far
away, were what looked like pure white hills; these were china-clay
mines, their father told them, where the clay was being dug out to make
cups and saucers and plates, and all sorts of things.

“I think my mug must have come from there,” said Loveday gravely; “it
looks all white like that. Yes, I’m sure it’s the same; it has got ‘A
Present for a Good Child’ on it. Don’t you think it did, daddy?”

“It is quite likely,” said Dr. Carlyon; and Loveday was greatly pleased.

“It’s nice to see where things come from,” she said, with a gravely
satisfied air.

In another direction they could see the sea; at least their father told
them it was the sea, but to the children it looked more like the sky.

“That is the English Channel,” said Dr. Carlyon.

“_I_ think it is heaven--I mean the sky,” said Priscilla. “Father,
don’t you think that is where the earth and the sky join? They must
meet somewhere, mustn’t they? Do you think if I were to walk on and
on and on--oh, ever so far--I should walk right through into the sky,
and not know that I’d done it until I found myself with nothing but
clouds about me? I should be lost then, shouldn’t I? And I could never
get back again, could I? Oh, wouldn’t it be dreadful to turn round and
find nothing but clouds all around, and over one’s head, and under
one’s feet, and nothing to tell one the way! Just think of it, Loveday;
wouldn’t it be _frightful_?”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Loveday impatiently, “and I don’t want to
think any more.”

“Father,” went on Priscilla, “would it be like a sea-fog, only worse?”

Dr. Carlyon groaned and shook his head despairingly.

“If I am not driven crazy first with trying to answer your questions,”
he said, “I will take you one day soon to that very place, and then you
will see for yourself that it is sea, and not sky.”

“But supposing it isn’t all sea, but some of it is sky, and we didn’t
know it, and all got lost!” Priscilla looked up at her father with big,
awed eyes. “I shall hold on to you all the time, father.”

“Very well. I’ll promise you we won’t walk through the clouds by
mistake, and if they do catch us and wrap us round, we will all be
wrapped round together.”




CHAPTER III

ON THE ROAD TO LANTIG


By the time Dr. Carlyon and the children had finished discussing the
sea and the sky, they had reached the end of the level high ground and
come to a steep descent, at the bottom of which was another little
stretch of level road, and then a long, long, rather steep hill
up--Lareggan Hill it was called. The country around Trelint was very
hilly indeed; as a rule, if you weren’t going up a hill you were going
down one. Betsy trotted down now in fine style, and along the bit of
level ground, and the pace at which she went carried her a little way
up the hill before her, but not far. She considered she had done her
duty when she had trotted up a little way, and was at perfect liberty
to crawl up the rest of it at her own pace.

As soon as they slackened speed Priscilla looked up expectantly; it
was always her duty to drive up the hills when she was out with her
father, while he read aloud. As a rule, Dr. Carlyon handed the reins
over to her at once, and took out his book. He was a great reader,
and a very busy man, and unless he read while on his rounds he would
have been scarcely ever able to do so at all. When Hocking was driving
him he read “to himself,” but when Priscilla was his companion he
almost always read aloud to her. Priscilla loved these readings and
these drives more than anything, for though there was often much that
she could not understand, there was also a great deal that she could,
and some that she put her own meaning to, and some that her father
explained.

But to-day Dr. Carlyon forgot to hand over the reins. Perhaps he was
still busy thinking of the answers to Priscilla’s questions, or perhaps
Loveday and her pink parasol made things seem different. At last, after
looking at him questioningly for a few moments--as well as she could,
that is to say, with Loveday between them--she reached out her hand and
touched the reins.

“Father, wouldn’t you like me to drive now, while you have a nice
little read?”

“Dear, dear,” said Dr. Carlyon, “I had quite forgotten. But can you
drive, squeezed up as you are?”

“It is rather a squash,” sighed Priscilla. “Don’t you think we might
have the strap undone, father?”

Her father looked down at them as well as he could for the pink
sunshade.

“I think you might,” he said. “I don’t want to take four halves of
daughters home to mother. I tell you what we will do: Loveday and her
parasol shall sit on the box-seat behind me, with her feet on your
seat; then she will be safe, unless she deliberately throws herself
out over the back, and I should think that a young woman with a new
paint-box and that pretty sunshade would try hard not to.”

Dr. Carlyon made Betsy stand still for a moment across the road,
with her nose in the hedge, where she contentedly munched the grass
while they re-arranged themselves. Loveday was quite pleased with the
change, for she had not been able to hold up her sunshade with any
comfort to herself or any one else, so far. If she were not poking it
into Priscilla’s eye, she was digging her father in the ear, while if
she held it over her shoulder and out behind her, she could not see
it, and that, of course, was what she particularly wanted to do. So
she gladly took the seat given her, and was not only rid of the strap,
but was able to hold her parasol out over the back and stare at it all
the time. She thought it threw quite a pretty pink glow over her face;
at least, when she shut one eye, and screwed the other round until
she could see her own nose, her nose looked quite pink, and if her
nose did, of course her face did. She asked Priscilla about it, but
Priscilla was busy attending to the arrangement of the rugs and the
reins, and then to her driving.

Dr. Carlyon coaxed Betsy out of the hedge, produced a book, and on
they went again. It was really very lovely; the sun was shining, but
the breeze was cool and soft, and the larks were singing and soaring
up, up, up, till nothing was left of them but their voices; then down,
down, down, with a swoop and a flutter, until they were so low that the
children could see them hovering and darting like big brown musical
butterflies. The scent of clover wafted out from the fields, and of
honeysuckle from the hedges.

“Oh, I _am_ so glad I was born,” exclaimed Priscilla, with a deep-drawn
sigh of satisfaction.

Dr. Carlyon smiled.

“I hope you will always say the same, and in that same voice, Prissy,”
he said. “Now, what shall we read? I have the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ here;
shall I read to you about the Babes in the Wood?”

“Please,” said Priscilla.

She wondered a little that her father should have chosen anything
so babyish. He brought out all kinds of books and papers to read to
her, but they were always grown-up books and papers, and, as I said
before, Priscilla very often did not understand them. But to-day it was
quite thrilling and fascinating, and Priscilla listened with a face
of deepest sympathy and not a smile, as she heard of the poor dying
parents, and the woes of the hapless children.

“Oh, how dreadful!” she cried, as, later on, her father read slowly
through all the dreadful things that happened to the wicked old man.
“And his children let him die in the workhouse? They must have been
very bad children. I don’t believe the poor Babes would have done so,
if they had been alive. Loveday and I would have taken care----”

“No, I wouldn’t!” broke in Loveday. “It served him right for wanting
them to be killed. I wouldn’t have given him anything if he had
asked me--oh, ever so many times--not even a hot-water bottle, or an
‘extra-strong’ peppermint like Ellen takes. I’d--I’d have pulled all
his teefs out.”

“He wouldn’t have minded, I expect, if he had had a shilling for each,”
said Priscilla, forgetting the wrongs of the Babes, and remembering her
own. “Father, I had two teeth out a little while ago, and I didn’t
have even a penny given me, but Loveday had a shilling for one!”

“You poor little injured mortal,” cried her father, laughing down at
her. “I expect, though, you have two nice teeth in place of them by
this time; that is something to be grateful for. Many people would be
glad of two nice, strong, new teeth.”

“Yes,” said Priscilla, nodding her head gravely. “Miss Potts would.
Do you know, father, she had out all hers, and nobody ever gave her
anything. Doesn’t it seem unkind? And she hasn’t got any brothers, or
sisters either--she has lost them all.”

“Dear, dear, how sad! Have you and Miss Potts been telling your woes to
each other, and mingling your tears? ”

“I didn’t cry,” said Priscilla, “but my throat felt funny. It must be
dreadful to be an ‘only’!”

“I wish I was,” said a little voice over their shoulders with a deep,
deep sigh; “then p’r’aps I should be able to drive sometimes.”

Priscilla turned round, shocked and indignant.

“Well, Loveday, you can’t have everything!” she cried. “You’ve got a
paint-box, and I haven’t; and you’ve got a parasol, and I----”

“But I can’t paint here,” protested Loveday. “I want to go home now to
see if my paint-box is all safe,” she added suddenly.

Priscilla’s eyes twinkled wickedly.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if Geoffrey is home using all your paints.”

Loveday’s face fell, and her eyes filled with anxiety.

“Do you really think so? Do you really, Prissy?” she asked. Then her
face brightened. “Oh no; he can’t be, ’cause I hid them where I know he
wouldn’t think of looking!”

“Would you like to come and sit between us again?” asked her father.

“No, fank you; but I’d like Priscilla to sit here, and I’d have her
place and drive. She may hold my parasol if she likes--if she doesn’t
open it,” she added.

“Priscilla is too big to sit where you are. Would you like to sit down
on the mat at our feet?”

“No, fank you; but I’d like to sit where Priscilla is.”

“But where can Priscilla sit?”

“Can’t she walk just a little way?”

“I am afraid not.”

“Well, I’d like to sit in her seat,” persisted Loveday; “and put my
head on yours, and go to sleep.”

“Oh, so you want my place as well as Prissy’s! You aren’t at all a
greedy little person, are you? Where are we to sit? On the shafts, or
the steps, or must we run behind? I will tell you what we will do. I
will sit in Priscilla’s place and hold you on my knee, and Priscilla
shall have the box-seat and drive us. Will that please your High
Mightiness?”

“Yes, that will be lovely,” agreed Loveday, quite delighted; “and I’ll
hold my parasol over us both.”

“That will be charming; only try not to take out both my eyes. What
would mother say if you took back my two eyes on two tips of your
sunshade?”

“Mine isn’t a sunshade,” said Loveday.

“Parasol, then. What is the difference between a parasol and a
sunshade? Do tell me, for I don’t know.”

“I don’t know what a sunshade is, I’m sure,” said Loveday, with a lofty
air, “but this is a parasol. I know it said so in the letter that came
with it, and the person who bought it ought to know.”

“Which has Priscilla? A sunshade or a parasol?”

“Priscilla hasn’t got either. You see, her birthday is in the winter;
it would be silly to give her a parasol.”

“I understand. If your birthday is in the winter, you don’t feel the
sun. I expect that is why no one ever gave me one.”

At which idea Loveday shrieked with laughter. “Fancy daddy with a
parasol!” she cried. “What a silly daddy you would look!”

And in her excitement she lowered her own, and caught it in Priscilla’s
hair.

“Poor Priscilla won’t have a wig or a parasol either, if you aren’t
more careful of her,” said Dr. Carlyon, trying to rescue his eldest
daughter’s curls from his younger daughter’s parasol.




CHAPTER IV

A ROOMFUL OF BABIES, AND A GIANT’S CHAIR


“Now then, let’s change places,” said Loveday impatiently, as
Priscilla’s last curl was freed.

“Oh no; you _must_ wait until we have quite reached the top of the
hill! You don’t want to make poor Betsy stand here with the carriage
dragging her back all the time, do you?”

“I fink Betsy would like to stop and rest for a little while, and I am
_sure_ she wouldn’t mind. She is very strong, and I am not a bit heavy.
I don’t suppose she feels whether I am in the carriage or not. Do you
think she does?”

“She hears you, if she doesn’t feel you,” said Dr. Carlyon.

“Do you think that Priscilla and I and your medicine-case, all put
together, weigh as much as you do, father?”

“I think that if we had waited a year or two before we chose a name for
you, we should have called you ‘Chatterpie’ instead of Loveday.”

“Oh, I wish you had!” cried Loveday. “Wouldn’t it have been funny:
Chatterpie Jane Carlyon? Now, Prissy, _do_ make Betsy stop; we have
come to the very top. It is quite flat here.”

“I am going to draw up near that gate,” said Priscilla firmly, “so that
I can smell the charlock in that field.”

“That horrid weed!” said Dr. Carlyon. “You surely don’t like that?
Whoa, Betsy!” And without much coaxing Betsy came to a standstill by
the gate of the field where the charlock grew.

“I love it,” said Priscilla, drawing in deep breaths of the
charlock-scented air; “it always reminds me of--of--oh,
something--drives, and nice things, and sunny days, and the day you
gave me ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales,’ father.”

“I will get down now,” said her father, “then you must slip up on to
the box-seat, and I will get up on the other side and take Loveday on
my lap.”

Priscilla was delighted. She did not say much, but she was in a perfect
rapture of joy at being given the box-seat, and allowed to drive on the
level, and even downhill. She had never done so much before, and she
thought she should never, never forget this happy day. She longed to
get down and hug Betsy, and pat her as her father was doing. Instead,
she looked up at the darting, thrilling larks, and sniffed in the smell
of the charlock. It could not really have been the scent that she
loved, but the associations it had, and the thoughts it brought to her;
and she felt that she should love it more than ever after this day.

Then Dr. Carlyon got up and took Loveday on his knee, and on they went
again. Presently they saw a cart coming towards them, and Priscilla’s
heart beat a little faster as she realised that she would have to pass
it. She did not say anything, but her cheeks grew very red, and she
felt a great desire to take one rein in each hand; it seemed to her
that she could pull Betsy in better if she did; but she did not do it;
she knew it was not the right way to hold the reins, and she was rather
proud of her skill as a driver.

“You know which side of the road to keep, don’t you?” asked her father.
“You haven’t forgotten the verse I taught you, have you?”

“No,” said Priscilla. “At least, I remember most of it.

  “‘The rules of the road are a paradox quite.’”

Then she paused. “Um-um, I never can remember that second line; but it
doesn’t matter, it doesn’t tell you anything. I know the others--

  “‘If you keep to the left you are sure to be right,
  If you keep to the right you are wrong.’”

Priscilla did not know what “paradox” meant, but she thought the last
two lines were wonderfully clever, and she always said them to herself
when she was driving. The worst of it was, she could not always decide
in a moment which was her left hand and which her right. She had to
think of the nursery at home, where, if she faced the window, the
gas-bracket was on her left hand, and she had to picture herself there,
facing the window, and then she knew. But she had not always time to
think of those things, particularly when she was driving.

Now if the boy, who was coming nearer and nearer, had only drawn in to
one side or the other, she would have known what to do, and would have
pulled in to the opposite side, but he came right along the middle of
the road, and the only thing he seemed inclined to do was to drive into
them, until at last poor Priscilla was struck with a sudden panic of
alarm.

“Father,” she cried, “please, will you drive--I--I don’t know where to
go!”

Her father, looking up and seeing what was happening, took the reins,
and as he drew Betsy in to the hedge, he called out very sharply to the
stupid boy:

“Keep to your own side, boy; do you hear? Pull to the left. Don’t take
the whole road. Ah, I see it is Mr. Bennet’s horse and cart you are
in charge of? Well, I shall tell Mr. Bennet that you must have a few
lessons in driving before you can be trusted with a horse again. You
are a danger to every one you meet. You were quite right, Prissy,” he
said, giving her back the reins; “the drivers should be next each other
when passing, but that boy required the whole road and the ditches too.
Would you rather I drove now?”

“Oh no, thank you, I want to drive again.”

She felt ashamed of herself for having been so frightened, and made
up her mind to drive past the next vehicle she met, no matter what it
was. A great hay-waggon with a load of hay on it soon loomed in sight,
and for a moment it seemed as though there was no room in the road for
anything else, but Priscilla tried very hard not to be foolish. “The
drivers must pass next each other,” she repeated to herself; but this
driver was walking at the horse’s head, and he was on the far side of
the horse. She would have to go right across the road to pass close by
him. “He must be on the wrong side,” she thought. “Oh dear, what a lot
of men don’t know the rules of the road.”

When they were safely past she drew a big deep breath of relief, but
she felt very glad that she had managed by herself.

“Father, don’t you think all the boys should be made to learn at school
that verse you taught me; then they would know better how to drive?”

“I do indeed,” said Dr. Carlyon; “perhaps they would remember a simple
little thing like that. It isn’t much they do remember six months after
they have left school.”

“Hocking’s son Ned can draw a pear beautifully,” said Priscilla very
impressively, “but Hocking didn’t seem a bit glad. He said, ‘Better
fit they took and taught ’em how to grow ’em;’ he didn’t see what time
Ned was going to have for drawing pears on a bit of paper when he was
‘prenticed.’ Neither do I,” added Priscilla gravely.

Dr. Carlyon burst into hearty laughter.

“Quite true,” he said, “quite true. I am glad Hocking has so much
common sense, and I foresee that some day we shall have you sitting on
School Boards, and such-like.”

Priscilla supposed a School Board was some sort of hard seat or form,
but she did not like to ask, though she wondered very much why her
father should laugh so about it.

“I think, though, Prissy, you had better not talk as Hocking does. It
is not quite the way that little girls should speak.”

Priscilla sighed.

“I wish I was a boy,” she said earnestly. “I don’t want to sit on
School Boards and things, but I want to talk like Hocking, and to be a
miller’s man, and drive a waggon with four horses, and shout ‘Gee wug.’
Or else I’d like to be a Coachman or a bus-driver. I would rather be a
miller’s man, though, ’cause I like the little short whip the best; it
is so much easier to crack.”

“I am sorry,” said her father, smiling at her. “I suppose that driving
poor old Betsy only, and with a long-handled whip, which is never
required, is very poor fun to you, you ambitious young person!”

“Oh no; I love Betsy, and I love driving her, but, of course, I can’t
drive Betsy always; I am going to earn my own living when I grow up.”

“Would you have bells on the horse’s harness if you were a miller’s
man?” asked Loveday.

“Oh yes--a whole lot of dear little brass ones, and I’d keep them
always shining like new.”

“Well, here we are at Lantig School-house,” said Dr. Carlyon. “Draw
up here, Prissy. Would you two like to come inside, or wait in the
carriage?”

“Is it vaccinations?” asked Priscilla.

“Yes, it is vaccinations. I think there will be about a dozen or more
babies to-day.”

“Then I’ll come. Come along, Loveday, in, and see all the dear little
babies.”

Priscilla scrambled down, and Dr. Carlyon lifted out Loveday.

“You look very warm in that shawl,” he said. “I think you might take it
off while you are inside.”

Loveday, though, preferred to keep it.

“I’ll unpin it,” she said, “but I think I will wear it, ’cause it goes
with my parasol, and I am going to take in my parasol for the babies to
see. I think they will think it very pretty, don’t you, Priscilla?”

But Priscilla was already inside the building, gazing with fascinated
eyes at the rows of mothers and babies. The building, which was the
school-house, and stood a little way outside the village, had been
cleared of its usual occupants, and on the forms, which had been moved
back in two lines along the sides, sat a lot of country women, each
one holding a baby. Such jolly babies they were, most of them, great,
plump, smiling, healthy, country babies. Some were too young to notice
anything, and just lay asleep, or staring contentedly about them, but
others sat up and looked at Priscilla and each other and their mothers,
and laughed and crowed, and waggled their bald heads about. They were
all specklessly, spotlessly clean and kissable in their cotton frocks
and big pinafores, and the mothers looked as clean and tidy as the
babies, and most of them were just as smiling. When they saw the doctor
come in the mothers all stood up and curtseyed, and Dr. Carlyon had a
word and a smile for each one.

“Iss, they’m good enough now, doctor!” said one woman, in answer to his
remark on the babies’ good temper; “but I reckon you’ll soon set ’em
laughing the other side of their faces, poor dears.”

Loveday, who had become rather shy when she found herself entering a
room so full, stood and looked with interest at the woman who spoke,
and presently drew nearer to her:

“Does your baby scream on the other side of his face sometimes?” she
asked eagerly.

For a moment Mrs. Rouse looked at her, not quite understanding her.

“Iss, that ’e do, missie,” she said at last, “and pretty often too,
when he gets contrairy.”

“I wish you would tell me how he does it,” said Loveday anxiously; “I
do want to know.”

But, to her surprise and annoyance, Mrs. Rouse only burst into a peal
of laughter. Loveday could not bear to be laughed at at any time, but
there, before a whole roomful of strangers, it was really dreadful, she
thought. With very red cheeks she turned away and walked straight out
of the school-house, and glad she was that she did, for as she left she
heard Mrs. Rouse telling the others what she had said; after which they
all laughed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Loveday was very mortified and angry.

“I wish I hadn’t gone in,” she thought; “I won’t look at their babies
again, if they want me to ever so much. _I_ think they are very ugly
babies, and--and I’ll _say_ so if they laugh at me any more.”

She climbed up into the carriage, and perched herself on the seat, but
very soon she remembered that by-and-by the women and their babies
would all come out by that same door, and she would have to face them
all. When she remembered this she felt she could not possibly stay
there, so she climbed down again and wondered what she should do with
herself. She walked along the road a little way while she pondered,
and at last, around a bend in it, she saw to her great astonishment the
“giant’s arm-chair.”

The “giant’s arm-chair” stood high up in the hedge-bank beside the
road; it was made of white granite, and the seat of it was as large
as the floor of a small room; it had also an enormously wide, rounded
back, and two large arms; down in front of it, at one corner, was
a smaller block of granite, which was always known as the “giant’s
footstool.”

Loveday had driven past the great chair very often, and longed to stop
and climb up into it, but until to-day she had never had a chance. In
her delight she forgot all about the women and their laughter. But,
alas! when she reached the chair she found that the seat was far too
high for her to climb up into by herself; it would have taken a very
tall man to lift her high enough to reach it.

“Never mind, I can sit on the footstool,” she thought; but even that
proved a climb, and it was a difficult matter to get up and hold on to
her parasol all the time. She did manage it, though, after a struggle,
and when she sat up on it, holding her parasol open over her, she felt
quite repaid for her trouble, and very pleased and proud, only she did
wish Priscilla was there too.

“I wonder if the giant had any little children, and if they used to sit
on this footstool. I expect so. Oh, I _do_ wish Prissy would come and
see me now. She can’t really want to stay and look at those babies any
longer.”

[Illustration: “THE ‘GIANT’S FOOTSTOOL.’”]

Only a very low hedge bordered the road on the other side, and beyond
that stretched a large piece of wild moorland, covered with large
blocks of granite. “That was one of the giant’s play-grounds,” her
father had once told her, “when Cornwall was full of giants, and very
probably the great rocks scattered about were the stones they had
thrown at each other in play, or when quarrelling.”

“I am very glad I didn’t live then,” thought Loveday; “I wonder what
happened to little girls like me. I wonder if they ate them all up! I
expect they did if they caught them sitting in their armchairs,” and a
little thrill of fear ran through her at the thought. It was very wild
and lonely there, with not a living thing in sight, except a few big
crows cawing noisily as they flew overhead, and a few goats clambering
about over the moorland opposite her. If one had not known that there
was the school-house and a little shop and a house round the bend of
the road, one might have felt oneself miles and miles from anywhere,
and anybody. Loveday felt as though she were, and it really seemed to
her that at any minute a big giant might come striding along the wide
white road to have a rest in his chair, and would catch her!

Of course, she did not really expect him, and she knew there were no
giants nowadays, but she felt she would rather like to see Betsy again,
and be safely in the dear old carriage, where there were rugs and
things to hide under, and she at once scrambled down from the footstool
and ran, not because she was nervous, of course! but because she wanted
a change, and to see Betsy.

“O Betsy, I am so glad to see you!” she cried, as she ran up to the
dear old horse and hugged her; and Betsy, who had been having “forty
winks,” opened her eyes and looked down at her little mistress with
what was certainly a smile, and she put down her soft nose and snuzzled
her affectionately. Once more Loveday mounted the carriage, but as she
did so she remembered the mothers and babies in the schoolroom. “Oh
dear,” she cried impatiently, “it seems to me I can’t get any rest; if
it isn’t giants it’s mothers! But I know what I’ll do: I will lie down
here, and when I hear them coming I will pull the rug up over me so
that they can’t see me.”

So she curled herself up on the lower of the two seats, with the rug
all over her except her head. She was only to pull it right up when she
heard any of them coming. But at one moment she thought she heard the
handle of the door being turned, and then she thought she heard voices
and footsteps coming out; and she had so many false alarms and grew so
nervous that at last she snuggled right down under the rug and stayed
there, and then she forgot to listen, and somehow, instead of being in
the carriage she was in the giant’s oven, and oh, it was so hot there
she felt she was being suffocated, when suddenly the oven door was
opened, and such beautiful cool air rushed in, and--

“Why, what has the child wrapped herself up like this for?” exclaimed a
voice; “she must be trying to cook herself, I think.”

“Perhaps she is afraid of getting a cold where her tooth came out,”
said another voice, which was Prissy’s. Loveday roused herself, and sat
up and stretched; she was very hot and tumbled, and rosy and she could
not remember for a moment what had happened. Then out came a woman with
a crying baby in her arms. Loveday recognised Mrs. Rouse, and wanted to
be under the rug again.

“There, missie! He’s laughing the other side of his face now,” she
said, smiling good-temperedly up at Loveday, and holding out the
sobbing baby for her to see.

“I don’t think he is at all pretty, whichever side he smiles,” said
Loveday very crossly, and without a ghost of a smile on her own face.
She knew she was rude and unkind, but she felt at that moment that
she wanted to say something nasty, and she said it. Priscilla was
shocked, and her father was vexed with her, but Mrs. Rouse only laughed
good-temperedly.

“It was your pa that made him to. You must ask him to learn you how to
laugh the other side of your face.”

“I don’t want to know, thank you,” said Loveday shortly. “Prissy, will
you pin up my shawl, please? If I talk any more I shall catch a cold in
my mouth.”

Priscilla got up, and, kneeling on the seat beside her little sister,
arranged the shawl very carefully about her.

“I wouldn’t speak like that if I were you, dear,” she said gently;
“Mrs. Rouse is such a nice, kind woman, and she doesn’t understand
that you don’t like her--her joking.” Loveday jerked away her head
quite crossly, but Priscilla went on. “If you laugh and don’t take any
notice, they won’t think anything about it; but if you look so cross
and say nasty rude things, they will talk ever so much about it.”

Loveday saw the sense of this, and it seemed so dreadful that she
forced herself to be less disagreeable, and to look at some of the
other babies, and even to smile at some of the mothers, but she could
not forgive Mrs. Rouse quite yet.




CHAPTER V

SWEEPING THE DRAWING-ROOM


The day after the drive to Lantig, Mrs. Carlyon was having a large
“At Home” in the afternoon--large, that is, for Trelint--and all the
household was very busy. There were cakes to make, and biscuits, and
tea-cakes, and sandwiches, and ices, and all kinds of good things, for
there were not many shops in the town; besides which, it was considered
a point of honour to make most of the things at home.

Ellen always grew very cross at these times, but she cooked her best,
for every one in Trelint knew who Dr. Carlyon’s cook was; just as
every one knew how many servants every one else had, and who they
were. Nurse, too, was not as patient as usual, she had so many things
on her mind, for where there are only two maids to help, a big party
makes every one very busy, and the children had to amuse themselves
as best they could--at least, Priscilla and Loveday had to; Geoffrey
had gone to spend the day in the country with some friends, glad
enough to escape “such silly things as At Homes,” he said. Priscilla
and Loveday almost wished that they had been invited too, for the day
seemed very long and dull without mother, or Geoffrey, or Nurse. They
were told, too, to keep in the nursery and play, for they would be in
the way anywhere else, but to be told to amuse oneself makes it a very
difficult thing to do; everything seems, at once, to be not the very
least bit amusing.

The dining-room was to be arranged for the guests to go to, to
partake of tea and coffee when they arrived; and the drawing-room
was, of course, to be decorated with flowers, and arranged a little
differently. Priscilla and Loveday were not wanted anywhere, and they
could not play in the garden, for there had been heavy rain during the
night.

“Oh dear!” sighed Priscilla, “there is nothing, nothing that I feel I
want to do, and there is more than an hour before we can see the guests
coming.”

Loveday glanced at the clock, too. “So there is,” she sighed; “it isn’t
free yet.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Priscilla crossly; “you know you can’t tell the
time, so why pretend?”

“You said so, too,” protested Loveday; “and I know the people are going
to begin to come at four, ’cause mother said so, and if it is more than
an hour before they come, that shows that it isn’t free yet by the
clock.”

In her heart Priscilla thought that it was very clever of her little
sister to have found out all that, but she did not tell her so; she
thought Loveday was a vain enough little person already. She dropped
down with a weary sigh beside her doll’s house, but they had already
given that a thorough cleaning from top to bottom, and there was
nothing more to do to it. They had dressed and undressed all their
dolls and put them to bed, so that they were settled for the night,
and wanted no more attention. Every animal had gone out of the ark for
a walk, and marched back to it again, and there really seemed nothing
left to do that was worth doing.

“I _wish_ I could help mother,” sighed Priscilla, who always loved real
work much more than play work--she would far rather help to dust a room
than dust or tidy her doll’s house; “and if they are so busy,” she
added, “I am sure there must be lots that I can do.”

After another moment or two had passed, she shut the doll’s house door
with a bang, and got up from the floor. “I am going downstairs just a
teeny-tiny way,” she said softly. “Don’t you come too, Loveday; you
needn’t do everything that I do.”

But it was really too much to expect Loveday to stay in that dull
nursery by herself, and very soon she was creeping out after Priscilla.

Priscilla had reached the foot of the nursery stairs, and was standing
on the landing looking over the banisters, and listening for any
sounds of life below, and Loveday joined her. No one was about, that
they could see, but from the dining-room came the rattle of china.
Presently, however, they heard their mother’s voice; she was speaking
to Nurse.

“I will leave you to finish arranging the cups and saucers,” she said,
“and I will go to the kitchen and place the cakes out on the plates;
then it will be time for me to dress. I ought to rest for a few
minutes, for I am so tired already I can scarcely stand.”

Priscilla and Loveday drew back while their mother passed along the
hall below, for they did not want to be seen; they were doing no harm,
they thought, and it was very much more interesting to be there than in
the nursery. They must run away, though, before mother came upstairs to
dress, but by that time it would be nearly time for them to watch from
the nursery windows to see the first guests arrive.

“I do wish I could help mother,” sighed Priscilla again. “She is so
tired, and has such lots to do. Can’t we do something to help? Oh!”
with sudden delight, “I know what I’ll do! I’ll dust the drawing-room!
Now, don’t you come too, Loveday. I thought of it first, and I can do
it by myself, and you are sure to break something and get us both a
scolding.”

But Loveday was not to be put off in that way, and, to save a howl,
Priscilla said, “Well, come along; you may come if you will promise to
be good.”

The drawing-room was on the very landing on which they stood. Priscilla
crept over to the door and looked in. Of course it was empty, and to
her it looked as though the furniture had all been pushed back, just
as when the room was going to be swept, only there were no dust-sheets
over the things.

“I believe it hasn’t even been swept yet!” she whispered, in a shocked
voice. “We’ll sweep it first, shall we?”

It was a grand idea, and Loveday agreed delightedly. Nurse still kept
her nursery brushes in a cupboard on the top landing; they would get
those, then no one would know what they were doing, and when Nurse came
up presently, all hot and tired, to sweep and dust the room she would
find it all done, and have a most beautiful surprise; and she would
not scold them at all; she would be so glad, and perhaps she would let
them have some of the “At Home” cakes for their tea!

They hurried up the stairs very gently, and Loveday carried down a
long-handled brush, while Priscilla carried the dustpan in one hand and
the brush in the other, so that they should not clatter.

“Now close the door,” whispered Priscilla; and Loveday turned to do
it, bringing her broom-handle with a sharp tap against a picture which
hung by it. Priscilla was too busy to hear the blow, or to see what had
happened.

“It was such a _little_ tap,” said Loveday to herself, as she gazed
ruefully up at the crack which ran quite across the glass of the
picture.

Priscilla was on her knees by that time, brushing the carpet as hard as
she could with the short-handled brush.

“What shall I do?” asked Loveday. “I can’t use this brush; it is so
tall it knocks my head.”

“You shall dust,” panted Priscilla, looking up with a very red face.

“But I haven’t a duster!”

“You have a handkerchief, haven’t you? Use that.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Loveday.

“Oh, how you do worry! Here, take mine!”

Loveday pounced on it gladly, and began to rub the legs of a chair.

“I think mother will be surprised to see the carpet so well swept.
Won’t she?” said Priscilla contentedly.

“Yes; and to see everything so well dusted. P’r’aps the guests will
notice it, too, and will say, ‘Here, Mrs. Carlyon, is sixpence for the
person who dusts your room so well.’”

But Priscilla scouted the idea with the utmost scorn.

“As if they would!” she cried. “Why, you silly child, people don’t say
things about other people’s rooms, not even if they aren’t dusted at
all. Of course, you can dust easy things like chairs, but I’ll have to
do the vases, and all the--take care, Loveday, the door is opening; oh,
do mind your head!” and Loveday stepped back just in time to allow the
door to be opened a little way. “Who is there? You can’t come in yet,”
cried Priscilla.

But the door opened wider, and Nurse’s agonised face appeared, and
behind her, gazing amazedly at Priscilla through a haze of dust, stood
Lady Carey.

“Miss Priscilla! Oh, what _are_ you doing? Oh, you naughty, naughty,
mischievous children!” cried Nurse, horrified, and not knowing what to
do, or which to attend to first. “Excuse me, ma’am,” she said, turning
to the visitor, “but--but--oh, what can I do? The guests will all be
coming in a few minutes, and the room is like this!”

Lady Carey smiled.

“Are the little people too zealously industrious?” she asked. She saw
at once that something was amiss, and wanted to make as light of it as
possible. “How do you do, children? Are you Mrs. Carlyon’s two little
daughters?”

Priscilla dropped her brush, sprang to her feet, and went forward to
shake hands. Her checks were crimson with hard work and shame.

“How do you do?” she said breathlessly. “Yes, I am the eldest; I am
Priscilla, and this is Loveday. Loveday” (in an angry aside), “stop
dusting, _do_! I am very sorry the dust is flying,” she went on,
turning to Lady Carey again. “We wanted to help mother and Nurse
because they were so busy getting ready for the ‘At Home,’ and I was
sweeping the carpet and Loveday was dusting the easy things, like
chairs and table-legs, but we didn’t know it was time for the guests to
be coming. Nurse,” turning to her with a distressed air, “what can we
do?”

“Aren’t you _very_ early?” asked Loveday of Lady Carey, as soon as she
had shaken hands with her, and said “How d’ye do?”

“Well, you see, dear, I am not come to the ‘At Home’; I did not know
your mother was having one. I came to return your mother’s call, and I
have unfortunately chosen an inconvenient day.” Then, turning to the
servant: “The dust has gone, I think, and I can sit here--unless, of
course, you want to be going round with a duster.” But before Nurse
could reply she went on: “No, I tell you what I would much rather do,
and what would be by far the best plan,” she added kindly; “I have some
other calls to pay, and Mrs. Carlyon is very busy, and as I wanted to
have a nice long talk with her, I will go away now and come one day
soon when she has more time. Don’t tell her about this call, at least
until after all her guests have gone, and then be sure to tell her I
quite understood, and would rather come when I can have her all to
myself.”

“I--I--but I am sure my mistress would wish to see you, ma’am,” said
Nurse, who was perplexed to know what she ought to do.

“Yes, I know,” said Lady Carey; “but it would be much more pleasant
for us both if I called another day. Now let me out, and hurry back to
set this room to rights. It is striking the quarter to four. Good-bye,
children. I hope I shall see you again soon.”

“Good-bye,” said Priscilla, but very, very shamefacedly; and as soon
as Lady Carey had gone she flew up the stairs to her own room, and,
flinging herself on her bed, burst into tears of shame and pain.

“And I meant to help! I meant to make such a nice surprise for mother,
and oh! I’ve done such a _dreadful_ thing!” and poor Priscilla sobbed
and sobbed until her head ached.

Presently soft footsteps came lightly up the stairs and to her room,
but Priscilla, with her hot face buried in the bed-clothes, did not
hear them.

“Prissy, dear,” said her mother, as gently and kindly as though nothing
had happened, “will you do something for me? Will you run down very
quickly and help Nurse to dust the drawing-room? If you will help her,
there will be just time to set it all straight again before our guests
arrive.”

“Oh yes, mother.”

Priscilla scrambled off the bed in a moment, and pushed her hair back
from her face.

“Here is a nice soft duster,” said mother; “run quickly, dear.”

But Priscilla, using the soft duster to mop her eyes with, stayed for
just a moment to throw her arms about her mother’s neck.

“Oh!” she cried, “I do think you are the very nicest mother in all the
world. I _am_ so glad I haven’t got any other,” and she hugged and
kissed her again.

“Now, don’t wipe your eyes on the duster any more, dear,” said Mrs.
Carlyon laughingly, and returning the kiss, “or it will make the things
quite dull instead of polishing them.”

Priscilla did not answer; she was gazing at her mother, lost in
admiration. Mrs. Carlyon had on a pretty brown silk gown, trimmed with
bands of little pink roses and green leaves, and the gown suited her
fair hair and delicate complexion to a nicety.

“I don’t wonder father married you, mother. You do look nice in that
gown.”

“Run away and dust my drawing-room,” cried Mrs. Carlyon, laughing
again, “and don’t waste time thinking of flattering things to say to
your mother. Hurry; it is close on four, and people will be coming
soon.”

“I wonder,” thought Priscilla, as she ran off, “if I shall ever have a
gown like that. But”--with a sigh--“if I had I shouldn’t look as pretty
in it as mother does.”




CHAPTER VI

MRS. TICKELL, MRS. WALL, AND AN ACCIDENT


“Infants!” said Geoffrey, popping his head round the nursery door,
“come up in the orchard; I’ve rigged up such a jolly swing there!”

Priscilla and Loveday looked up from their play quite excited by the
news. They were keeping a shop at the moment--a book-shop--and had all
their nursery books and all the bits of paper and string they could
collect arranged before them on the window-seat, which made a splendid
counter. Books made such nice parcels, and were so easy to wrap up.
On the counter, too, they had an old Japanese jewel-case that their
mother had given them some time ago; it had two drawers, with handles,
so made a beautiful till for their money, and they were doing such good
business that already the till was heavy with the weight of the cowries
it held.

Priscilla had just wrapped up her “Playing Trades,” and handed
it across the counter to a customer, saying, “That will be
half-a-crown--thank you,” and was searching the till for a
sixpenny-piece, when Geoffrey opened the nursery door and popped his
head in. Business came to a standstill at once, and the two little
shopwomen hurried away, leaving books, and till, and everything.
Half-way down the stairs Priscilla stopped.

“Loveday,” she said, “don’t you think it would be rather nice if you
bought some sweets with your penny, and we ate them while we were
swinging?”

Loveday nodded.

“You will both wait for me while I am gone to buy them, won’t you? You
won’t be mean, and go on and begin to swing till I come?”

“All right,” said Geoffrey; “we’ll wait if you don’t take too long.”
Loveday, being the only one possessed of any wealth, had to be treated
with consideration. “Cut along, infant!”

Loveday had actually taken two steps, but Geoffrey’s words brought her
back again.

“I don’t think you ought to call us infants,” she said severely. “It
doesn’t sound at all nice, and if you do it again I don’t think I shall
give you a single sweet. We aren’t infants; father said so. Infants
are--are--well, we aren’t infants.”

“I think we will go on and begin to swing,” said Geoffrey, to tease
her--“don’t you, Prissy? If we wait for the end of this conversation I
am afraid the tree will die of old age.”

“I don’t know how you can like to be such a rude boy,” said Loveday
cuttingly. “Nobody thinks rude boys funny or nice.”

There were two sweet-shops quite near to Dr. Carlyon’s house, and the
children were allowed to go alone to both of them. Mrs. Tickell’s was
on one side of the street, and Mrs. Wall’s was almost opposite. Mrs.
Tickell was the favourite with the children; she was always more
pleasant and smiling and patient than Mrs. Wall, and gave more generous
measure. On the other hand, the children found Mr. Tickell rather a
drawback. True, he was not often in the shop, as he was generally busy
in the bakehouse, for the Tickells, in addition to having sweets and
apples, and prize-packets and little china figures, made cakes and
pasties and jam-tarts to sell. But when Mr. Tickell was in the shop he
always stood by the half-door, and asked the most trying questions,
such as: “Now, can you say to me your six times right through without a
mistake?” or, “Can you tell me when Henry the Eighth began to reign?”
Once he even asked Geoffrey to say his dates right through, before the
Conquest and all. It was really dreadful, and as he always stood by the
door, there was no escaping him.

But Mrs. Tickell was so kind, and Emily, their daughter, was so beloved
by the children, that they bore with Mr. Tickell for their sakes, and
the shop remained their favourite.

Mr. Wall was of no account at all; the children had a notion that he
would be kind if he were left to himself, but that he was afraid of
Mrs. Wall. He very seldom spoke, and when he did it was only to say
something that they all thought very silly, such as “Fine weather this
for little ducks,” or something equally aggravating. So they put him
down in their minds as a weak creature, and took very little interest
in him. Mrs. Wall was a very solemn and unsmiling person. She never
grew friendly as Mrs. Tickell did. Priscilla heard some one once
telling a story of the Walls’ only son, who had died, she gathered, in
some tragic, mysterious way a long time ago, before she was born or
was old enough to remember anything. But what struck her even more than
the story was the remark, “And Mrs. Wall has never smiled since.”

After that, whenever she was within sight of Mrs. Wall, Priscilla
was always watching her to see if this was true or not. She would
hardly believe that she did not forget sometimes, and smile before she
remembered; but Priscilla had never yet seen her do so.

“It must be dreadful for Mr. Wall to have her always looking so--so
cross,” she confided to her father one day. “As for him, I don’t think
he could smile if he wanted to; his mouth is so very wide it couldn’t
possibly go any wider.”

To-day Loveday ran off with her penny in her hand to buy some
bull’s-eyes at Mrs. Tickell’s, but, as usual, she examined both the
shop windows thoroughly first, that she might get some idea as to how
best to lay out her money, and she was very glad she did, for in Mrs.
Wall’s window there was quite a large assortment of new things; there
were pink and white sugar mice, black liquorice babies with red lips
and blue eyes, sugar bird-cages, and little cocoa-nut fish-cakes. They
were all two a penny but the mice, and those were a farthing each.

Loveday felt, after gazing for some time, that she must have one of the
dolls, and that she wanted two of the mice. So she pushed open the shop
door and went in. A bell behind the door jangled loudly, so Loveday
knew that Mrs. Wall was upstairs “cleaning,” and that Mr. Wall was
absent, for the bell was always unhung and placed on the counter if
they were at hand.

Loveday liked to find the shop empty--it gave her time to look about;
but to-day, when she had looked about her for a few minutes, she
remembered that Geoffrey and Priscilla were waiting for her, and would
begin without her if she did not make haste, so she hammered sharply on
the counter with her penny, to make Mrs. Wall hurry. Silence followed.
She waited again what seemed to her a very long time, then knocked once
more, this time even more loudly. Still silence.

During the next few minutes Loveday quite changed her mind as to what
she would spend her money on. She suddenly remembered that Emily
Tickell had told her she had some beautiful rose-drops coming in, and
some honey-drops; and Loveday loved both. Besides which, the thought
crossed her mind that it might not be easy to divide the two mice and
the one doll. The mice were very hard to break, and she could not give
the whole doll to one; it would not be fair. She wished then that she
had not come to Mrs. Wall’s, and was just wondering if she could creep
out of the shop again without being seen, when she heard a sound, and
Mrs. Wall opened the little glass-topped door, and came up the two
steps leading from the parlour to the shop. She looked rather crosser
and sterner than usual.

“I had only just gone up to change,” she said sharply, “and as sure as
ever I go, that bell is certain to ring. What can I do for you, miss?”

Loveday felt uncomfortable; her heart was quite set now on getting the
rose-drops and the honey-drops, and not the doll or the mice, but what
could she say or do! Then a way out of her difficulty suddenly opened
out before her.

“Please, can you change a penny for me?” she asked very politely.

Mrs. Wall did not say anything, but her lips set a little more tightly
than usual as she went to the till and took out two halfpennies.

“Thank you,” said Loveday, with a sigh of relief, and, hurrying out,
she flew across the road to the Tickells’ shop, almost opposite. As
she reached the door she glanced back for one more look at Mrs. Wall’s
fascinating store, but all she saw was Mrs. Wall’s cold stern eye
looking after her with anything but an amiable expression in it, and
she turned with relief to Emily Tickell’s welcoming smile.

When at last she reached the orchard with her two precious packets in
her hands, Geoffrey and Priscilla were busy arranging a bit of wood for
a seat for the swing. They had not been swinging, they assured her, at
least only just trying it to see if it was all right, and Loveday was
satisfied and distributed her sweets.

But as soon as the sweets were in their mouths they began, and what a
glorious time they did have for a while!

They swung so high, and it seemed so dangerous and exciting, and
sometimes they took it in turns to swing, sometimes two got on
together, and once even the three of them.

“Perhaps we hadn’t better all get on together again,” said Priscilla
after that, looking at the slim skipping-rope they had all been
depending on. “It isn’t a very strong one, is it?”

“Strong enough,” said Geoffrey.

“Let’s play something else now,” said Loveday, flinging herself down on
the grass. “I am tired of swinging, and it makes me feel rather sick.”

Priscilla was sitting in the swing, just lazily moving it. “What shall
we do, then?” she asked reluctantly. “I don’t think we will stop
_quite_ yet; let’s go on for a little while longer, just one or two
more swings, and you watch us, Loveday, like a darling.”

“I can’t watch you,” said Loveday; “it makes my head swing too.”

“I tell you what,” said Geoffrey, “we’ll just have one more good turn,
then I’ll get out the sticks and hoops, and we’ll have a game of ‘La
Grace.’ You sit where you are, Prissy, and when I’ve given you a good
start I’ll spring up at the back of you. Loveday, you can look away if
it makes you giddy;” and with the same he sent the swing with Prissy
in it flying up through the air, then back she came, and up she went
again and back; but this time Geoffrey held on the ropes, and as the
swing swung forward the third time, he sprang up on his feet on to the
seat. The ropes quivered and strained, and for a moment their flight
was checked; then on they went again, up and down and up; then, with a
scream and a heavy thud, they both came down to the ground, Priscilla
underneath, Geoffrey on top of her.

Loveday was too bewildered to cry or to scream. At first, in fact, she
did not realise what had happened. She thought they were playing some
game, and that in a moment they would both jump up with a laugh and a
shout; and yet--Priscilla was so very white and still, and lay so long,
and though Geoffrey often groaned in fun and pretended to be hurt, it
was somehow not quite like this; and when at last Geoffrey tried to get
up, but only screamed and fell back again, Priscilla still never made a
sound or a movement. Geoffrey made one more effort, and dragged himself
off Priscilla; but he could not get up, for every time he tried to
raise himself on his arm, the pain was greater than he could bear.

“I believe I’ve broken my shoulder--or something!” he gasped. “Loveday,
run quick, and tell some one to come! Get father, and--Prissy,
Prissy”--he broke off to call his sister. “Oh, why doesn’t she open her
eyes? Prissy, speak; do speak.”

He tried to move her, but he could not manage that.

“Run, Loveday, as fast as ever you can--do!”

He looked so ill and scared, and Priscilla looked so dreadful, lying
so still with her arms all crumpled up under her, that Loveday nearly
fainted with fear; but she ran and ran as she had never run before, and
all the way her clear shrill voice rang out: “Daddy, mother, Nurse,
come quick! Where are you? Oh, do come!” She called so loudly, and
there was such real distress in her voice, that by the time she reached
the house her father was hurrying out to meet her; and before she had
gasped out half her tale of woe, he had gathered her up in his arms,
and, followed by, it seemed, the whole household, was rushing to the
orchard, where Priscilla lay as Loveday had left her, and Geoffrey, as
pale now as Priscilla, was still struggling to get up and at the same
time to choke back the tears of pain that would force their way up.

Then there followed a busy, sad, painful time, when, between them all,
they got the two injured ones to bed, and attended to their hurts.
Geoffrey’s shoulder was not fractured, but it was dislocated, and he
had strained and bruised both arms.

“If you had fallen backwards,” said Dr. Carlyon gravely, “instead of
forwards, you would probably have dislocated your neck. How could you
run yourself and your sisters into such a danger? It was most culpable
of you.”

“It seemed all right,” groaned poor Geoffrey, “and I don’t know now why
we fell. The branch was a strong one----”

“Yes, but the rope was not, and you put it up loosely, so that it
rubbed every time you swung, and, of course, rubbed through in a very
little while. You shall see the frayed ends when you are well enough;
perhaps it will help to teach you how a swing should not be hung.”

Poor Priscilla had a fractured arm and a cut head, and was badly
bruised all over; and when, poor child, she awoke from her
unconsciousness, she found herself one big block of pain from head
to heels, or so it seemed to her. But worst of all, perhaps, was the
dreadful pain in her head from the blow, and the jerk, and the shock.
She could not endure a ray of light, nor a sound, nor to speak or be
spoken to.

Poor Loveday crept into the bedroom time after time to be near her.
She brought her best books and her favourite toys, her paint-box, and
even her pink parasol to lend, or to give to Priscilla, if by doing so
Priscilla could only be got to look better and to take some interest in
things. But Priscilla lay very still and white, moaning occasionally,
and did not look at Loveday or her treasures, or seem able to take any
interest in anything, and poor little Loveday crept away again, feeling
perfectly miserable, and at her wits’ end, for if those things failed,
she really did not know what could be done. And if she went to Geoffrey
she only felt more miserable, for he was so remorseful and unhappy, and
kept on saying such dreadful things about himself for having caused it
all, that one could not dare ask him to play, or even to read aloud, or
to do anything.

At last Loveday grew to look so ill and moped, that her father and
mother decided it would be better for her to go away for a little while
to more cheerful surroundings, or she would be ill too. But then came
the question: “Where could she go?”

“Granny would have her, and be delighted to,” said Mrs. Carlyon, “but I
don’t know how to get her up there. I couldn’t possibly travel up and
back all in one day, and I should not like to be longer away from home
just now. Nor can you be spared either.”

“And I would like her to have sea air,” said Dr. Carlyon. “I think it
would be much better for her.”

“And I would like her to be where she could have a child or so to play
with,” added Mrs. Carlyon.

So it seemed they had to find a place for Loveday with children,
not very far from home, but by the sea. It was Nurse who settled the
difficulty at last.

“I suppose you wouldn’t like to send her to Bessie, down at
Porthcallis, sir, would you? She’s got a nice little cottage, and close
to as nice a bit of safe, sandy beach as you could find anywhere, made
on purpose for children, I should think, and her own little boy must be
nearly as old as Miss Loveday. Bessie does understand children too, and
she is very fond of Miss Loveday.”

This was one of Nurse’s great anxieties. She could not bear the idea
of her “baby” being sent away; but if it was better for her that she
should--and Nurse saw that it was--she was anxious that she should go
to some one who loved her and would make her happy.

Bessie Lobb had been a housemaid for a few years with Dr. and Mrs.
Carlyon when Geoffrey and Priscilla were babies. She had left to get
married before Loveday was born, but she had been back several times to
Trelint to visit her relations, and had always come several times to
see her former master and mistress, and children, and Nurse.

Every one hailed Nurse’s suggestion with joy, for Porthcallis was only
about fifteen miles from Trelint. The beach was, as Nurse said, very
safe, the air was beautiful; and Bessie was a good, kind, trustworthy
body, and her husband was a nice respectable man, and devoted to
children.

Mrs. Carlyon wrote to Bessie at once, and very quickly a reply came to
say that Bessie would be proud and pleased to have Miss Loveday. She
had a spare bedroom that Miss Loveday could have, and she would do her
best to make her comfortable and happy.

“That is capital,” said Mrs. Carylon, greatly relieved that matters
were settling themselves so well. “I will write to Bessie at once, and
say I will bring Loveday on Thursday.”

“Then I had better set to work at once to sort out my toys and begin to
pack, I suppose,” said Loveday, in a tone of great importance, “or I am
sure I shall never be ready in time.”




CHAPTER VII

LOVEDAY GOES VISITING


But though she began her packing at once, and went on with it most
industriously for the two following days, yet, when Thursday morning
came, she was not, according to her own accounts, nearly ready.

There really was a great deal to be done. First of all she had to
find a basket in which to pack her cat, “Mrs. Peters,” and her three
kittens, for until that was done she could not make any other plans or
attend to anything else.

Fortunately, however, she found at once a nice shiny hat-box, with a
leather handle and a lock and key, which would just hold the Peters
family, for the kittens were quite tiny. “I will pack all my white
flannel petticoats in the bottom of it,” she said to herself, “for they
will be nice for Mrs. Peters and the kittens to lie on, and it will be
a good thing to get the petticoats in out of the way.”

So in went the petticoats, and then the kittens, but Mrs. Peters was
out, and had to be waited for. She came in, though, in such good time
that she and her family and the petticoats were packed and locked and
strapped up long before Loveday’s dinner-time came; and what would
have been the end of the poor kittens and their mother if their own
dinner-time had not come very soon, and Nurse had not come in search of
them to feed them, no one can imagine, for the box had no ventilation
holes, and the lid shut down quite close.

If Mrs. Peters and the kittens suffered, though, Loveday suffered too;
for Nurse was so angry when she saw the petticoats in the box with the
cats, that she ordered Loveday to sit down and pick off from them every
single hair that the cats had left behind, and they had left so many
that to Loveday it seemed a marvel that they were not all quite bald.
She did not get rid of quite all the hairs, though, for by tea-time
her eyes were so swelled and smarting with crying, she was excused the
rest, after promising never, never to do such a thing again.

“Don’t you think, dear, that you had better leave Mrs. Peters and her
family behind?” suggested her mother, when Loveday, after ransacking
the whole house, had found a basket to take the place of the hat-box.

“Oh no!” cried Loveday; “Mrs. Peters would fret dreadfully for me.”

“Do you think she would, dear, now she has her little ones to interest
her?”

“Oh yes, I am sure she would. You see she would have no one to talk to
her.”

“I would talk to her,” said mother, “and make much of her,” and looking
rather grave, “you see there is a great deal of water at Porthcallis,
and the kittens are so very young. If they escaped from you or their
mother, and got down on the sands and a wave came in, and----”

“Can kittens swim?” asked Loveday, looking very anxious.

“No, dear; such baby things, too, would be too frightened to do
anything. I really think it would be kinder to leave them at home with
Nurse and me, and Priscilla would be glad, too, to have them to watch
and play with when she gets better. She will be rather lonely and dull
without you, you know.”

“So she will,” sighed Loveday, “but of course I shall come home at once
if Prissy wants me.”

“You must breathe in all the sea air you can, and grow strong and rosy,
and you must collect all the pretty shells you can find, for Priscilla,
and then, perhaps--but remember it is only _perhaps_--when Priscilla
and Geoffrey are well enough we may all come down to Porthcallis for a
holiday with you.”

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Loveday, dancing and clapping her hands with
joy. “I shall like going ever so much better now than I did.” She went
over and leaned on her mother, and looked up into her face. “I--I
didn’t want to go before you said that,” she confided to her in a half
whisper, “at least not very much; but I do now, and I will get all the
shells I can for Prissy, and I will get to know my way everywhere so
as to be able to lead you all about when you come. And now,” bustling
away, “I am going to take out all my toys to see which of them I shall
pack;” and off she ran. In a moment or two, though, she was back again.

“Mother, don’t you think I ought to take one of my toys, or one of
Prissy’s, to Aaron Lobb? I don’t expect he has very many, and little
boys and girls always like to have something brought to them when
people come on a visit.”

“Yes, certainly, dear. Take one of your own--something you think a boy
would like.”

Loveday thought for a moment. “I fink I’ll take him the big monkey. It
is very ugly, but boys like ugly things;” and off she ran again, and
this time really reached the nursery, where Mrs. Peters and her family
were frantically clawing at the basket in their longing to get outside
it.

Loveday untied the lid and let them all out. “You are not to go after
all,” she said. “I hope you won’t be dis’pointed, but mother finks
Prissy may want you, and, after all, the fish at Porthcallis isn’t
better than any other, and there’s a _dreadful_ lot of water.”

Whether Mrs. Peters understood the change of plan or not, who can say?
But it is a fact that she lay down purring with happiness, and, drawing
all her children about her, talked to them for a long time.

Three days later, about noon, Loveday and Mrs. Carlyon started. It
was not a very long journey by train--an engine soon covers fifteen
miles; and the afternoon sun was still shining bright and hot when
they stepped out on the platform of the little bare country station,
which was not very far from Mrs. Lobb’s cottage. Though one could not
actually see the sea from the platform, one felt that it was close by,
for one could smell it in the air, and on stormy days one could hear
it; and, though I don’t know how it came there, there certainly was
sea-sand all about the platform, which made it look and feel as though
the sea certainly must reach that far sometimes.

It was all very open and breezy, and there seemed to be an endless
amount of air and space, and sea and sand, and sky and everything.
Loveday almost wished there was not quite so much; it made her feel so
small, and rather forlorn. But she had not much time to think about
it, for things kept on happening. There were no omnibuses or cabs or
anything to take them anywhere.

“How are we going to get my box to Bessie’s house?” she asked anxiously.

A man with a wheelbarrow had come up, and was standing by them.

“I’ll take the box, little lady,” he said, touching his hat and smiling
at her. “For the rest, hereabouts, we mostly goes on Shanks’s mare.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Loveday.

Mrs. Carlyon explained to the man where she wanted him to take the box,
and paid him; and when he had gone, and she had gathered up the little
things she wished to carry herself, she and Loveday started to follow.
Outside the station, Loveday stopped and looked about her.

“Come along, darling,” said mother rather impatiently. “What are you
looking for? This is the way. I want to go to one or two shops first.”

“I was looking for Shanks and his mare,” she explained, “to take us to
Bessie’s.”

[Illustration: “‘I’LL TAKE THOMAS,’ SHE SAID.”]

“I don’t think the station-master need have laughed like that,” she
said indignantly, as, a moment later, they walked quickly away.
“Everybody makes mistakes, and we don’t call legs by such silly names
at home, and--and one _can’t_ know _everything_. Even grown-ups don’t
know everything, but they do laugh at such silly things. _I_ don’t see
anything funny in it.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do, dear. But look! here is a fine shop,” said
Mrs. Carlyon, drawing up before a window full of toys, and china, and
a few books, and some boxes of chocolates, and a long string of tin
buckets all painted different colours. “We will go in, shall we? I want
to get you a spade and bucket.”

“Oh, thank you!” gasped Loveday. “How lovely!” and she forgot in a
moment all her troubles and the trying habit grown-ups have of laughing
at nothing.

Some of the buckets had names painted on their sides.

“Have you one with ‘Loveday’ on it?” she asked eagerly of the woman who
came out to serve them.

“Oh no, miss,” said the woman, shaking her head. “I never heard of no
such name as that before. I’ve got one with ‘Thomas’ on it, and ‘Ada,’
and ‘Susan.’”

Loveday hesitated a moment; then, “I’ll take ‘Thomas,’” she said. “You
see,” she explained to her mother when they got outside, “if I had
chosen ‘Ada’ or ‘Susan,’ people would have thought it was my own real
name, but they can’t think I am called ‘Thomas.’”

“I don’t suppose people have much time for thinking about little girls
and the names on their buckets,” said Mrs. Carlyon quietly.

“No, not people, mummy, but boys and girls have. They have lots of
time, and they notice everything.”

Armed with her spade and her scarlet bucket, Loveday walked on quite
cheerfully to Bessie’s house. From the station it had looked quite
close, only just across a green, and along a strip of level road and
a little bit of beach, and there you were. But the country just there
was flat and deceptive; the road wound and curved, and they found it
quite a longish walk by the time they had passed the green and followed
the windings of the road, and crossed the stretch of sands. But there
they were at last, and there was Bessie out to welcome them, and Aaron,
too, though he disappeared behind his mother’s skirts as soon as the
strangers came really close.

Loveday thought him a very funny little boy, and not at all pretty.
He had very round red cheeks, and a snub nose, and big dark eyes; his
hair was dark, too, and quite straight, and cut very close to his head.
Loveday looked at him with the greatest interest and curiosity. He was
very different from what she had expected; for one thing, he was older
and more manly.

“He is like a boy, not a baby,” she said to herself, and felt a little
disappointed.

She had thought she was to have had a play-fellow whom she could have
“mothered” and managed a little. But she soon found out her mistake.
Aaron Lobb was not at all a baby, nor did he think himself one or allow
others to do so. He was a sturdy little fellow, and full of a knowledge
of the sea and the tides, and boats, and shells, and fishing, which to
Loveday seemed simply amazing, and clever beyond words.

When they had all talked a little, Bessie led the way into the house,
and Loveday thought it was the most interesting, funny, and charming
house she had ever seen in her life. It stood back from the beach,
close under the towering cliff, and was a long low house, only one
storey high, with big windows, and a porch over the door, and a
verandah on each side of the door, and it was painted white, all but
the window-frames and the doors, and they were green.

Bessie explained that it had been built by a gentleman who lived in a
big house on the top of the cliff. He had had it built years ago for
his boatman to live in, “and there is the path he had made for the man
to go up and down by to the big house.”

Loveday looked, and saw a dear little winding path going up and up,
with here and there a flight of little steps where the cliff was
particularly steep, and all the way there was a strong hand-rail to
prevent one’s falling over.

“Does your husband take charge of the boats for the gentleman now?”
asked Mrs. Carlyon.

“Oh no, ma’am,” said Bessie, shaking her head and looking very grave.
“He doesn’t keep one now, poor gentleman! His only son was drowned one
day out there, right in front of his windows, and Mr. Winter--he--he
saw it, and--and it pretty nearly drove him out of his mind. The next
day he sent down to Button--Button was his man--and ordered every boat
to be broke up, and he got rid of Button--not ’cause ’twas his fault,
but ’cause he couldn’t abide the sight of anything that had to do with
that dreadful day. He was going to have this little place pulled down
too, but my husband begged and prayed him not to, houses here being so
scarce there’s no getting one. And Mr. Winter, he gave in. You see,
ma’am, he’d had the little place built low like this, and right back
under the cliff, so’s it shouldn’t be seen from the house, so he was
never worried by the sight of it, and after the accident he wouldn’t be
likely to, for he had the blinds on that side of the house that faced
the sea drawn down, and he dared anybody ever to raise them again in
his lifetime.”

Loveday was very much impressed by this sad story. She seemed to see
the poor father sitting lonely and sad in his dark house, while his
only son lay for ever at the bottom of the cruel sea, which stretched
before his very eyes. There were tears in Mrs. Carlyon’s eyes as
she listened, and quite a sadness lay for the moment over the whole
scene as they followed Bessie into the bungalow. It was quite a large
bungalow, and so well built and nicely finished inside. On one side
of the little entrance was a cosy, spotlessly clean kitchen-parlour,
with scullery behind it, and beyond that was Bessie’s bedroom; both had
windows looking out to sea, and Bessie’s room had a little door at the
end, by which she could get in and out without having to go through
the kitchen. On the other side of the entrance was a nice little room,
which had been built, said Bessie, for the young gentleman and his
friends to have a meal in, or sit in, and behind it were two little
rooms which had been built for dressing-rooms or bedrooms, for him to
change in if he came home wet, or to sleep in if he was going to start
very early on a fishing expedition, or come home late.

The front room, which looked out to sea, Bessie had made her parlour,
while the others were two dear little bedrooms, one of which was now
Aaron’s, while the other was to be Loveday’s.

Loveday’s eyes sparkled when she saw hers. It had a wooden bed in
it--such a curious-looking one, for it had been a four-poster, but,
as it wouldn’t go into any room in the bungalow, they had had to cut
the top off, so that now it seemed to have two sets of legs, the
four it stood on and four that stood up in the air. The window was
hung with curtains of blossom-white muslin, and the looking-glass
and dressing-table and bed were all hung with the same. So snowy and
soft and billowy it looked, the little room might almost have been
filled with white clouds or foam. The woodwork was painted white, and
the walls were white too, but for a frieze around the top, whereon
white-sailed ships scudded along over a glorious blue-green sea, while
gulls hovered and swooped, or stood stiffly on the bright green grass
on the cliff-top.

Loveday was enchanted. “Oh, I wish Prissy could see it too!” she cried,
and that was the only flaw in her great delight.




CHAPTER VIII

PISKIES STILL LIVE AT PORTHCALLIS


Presently though, just for a time another shadow fell, for it seemed
only a very, very little while before it was time for her mother to
leave.

“I _wish_ you could stay all the time, mother,” she whispered eagerly.
“Couldn’t you, mother? It would do you good too.”

“But, darling, think of poor Priscilla. She will be wanting me, and I
know you wouldn’t like to keep me away from her.”

Loveday was not quite sure of that at the moment, but she would not
have said so; and when she thought of pale, suffering Prissy, she tried
hard to choke down any selfish feeling, and to be very brave. “But--you
will come again soon, won’t you, mother?”

“Yes, darling, very soon; and I expect father will run down to see you
in a very little while, and we will always let you know if any of us
are coming, so that you can come to meet us. Now, are you going to see
me off at the station, or will you stay here and wave your handkerchief
to me?”

“Oh, please, I’ll go to the station.”

They all had tea on the beach outside the cottage, and when that was
done it was almost time for Mrs. Carlyon to start on her homeward
journey. Bessie was to go to the station too, and take Aaron with her;
and Mrs. Carlyon felt pretty sure that by the time Loveday had had the
double walk, she would be too tired to fret much, or feel lonely, or to
do anything but go to bed and sleep.

She was a very brave little woman, on the whole, considering that she
was alone in a strange place, and with people who were almost strangers
to her. A few tears did force themselves through her lids, but she did
not say anything.

“When you get back, darling, you must help Bessie to unpack your box,
and you will be able to give Aaron his monkey, then you will be ready
for bed, and when you wake up again it will be morning, and you will
feel so happy, and there will be so much to see and do, that you will
scarcely know what to see and do first. But don’t forget to collect a
nice lot of shells for Priscilla.”

Then the engine gave two or three snorts and puffs, and a loud
whistle--away moved the train, and Loveday found herself left alone.

She might have shed a few tears more when the train puffed away--in
fact, it is pretty certain that she would have if she had not, at that
moment, caught sight of the station-master, and remembered his rude
laughter about Shanks’s mare. He had not caught sight of her yet, and
Loveday was anxious to hurry away before he did, and in her eagerness
and hurry she quite forgot about her tears and her loneliness; and
then it was such fun to watch the ducks and geese on the green, and to
make them run at one, and stretch their necks and scream, that she
was soon laughing instead of crying; and when they got back there was
a boat drawn up on the beach, and that was very exciting, for Mr. Lobb
had come back with a big catch of crabs and lobsters, and Loveday,
after being introduced to him, was for quite a long while perfectly
fascinated, watching the creatures trying to get out of the great
lumbering crab-pots which he had brought them home in.

“I wish now, missie, as yer ma hadn’t a-been gone, for she could have
took home two or three of these, and welcome to ’em.”

“Oh, I wish she hadn’t,” said Loveday earnestly. “Father loves lobsters
and crabs; he would have been so glad--so would Geoffrey.”

“Well, look here now,” said John Lobb good-naturedly. “Bessie’ll bile
these presently, and then if she’ll pop one or two into a basket, I’ll
take them up and post ’em, and your pa’ll have ’em in time for his
breakfast in the morning.”

At which Loveday was full of gratitude, and thanked her new host very
heartily and prettily.

So Bessie hurried in to attend to her fire, and as a cold wind was
blowing in from the sea, she bade the children follow her.

[Illustration: “A BIG CATCH OF CRABS AND LOBSTERS.”]

“Now I’ll unpack my box,” thought Loveday, and, Bessie having
unstrapped and unlocked it for her, she began. There was a little white
chest of drawers in the room, and a big cupboard built into the wall,
so that she had plenty of room for her belongings. Her little frocks,
though she had quite a lot of them, took up a very small space indeed,
but two of her sun-hats covered one shelf of the cupboard, and
she had to take another shelf for her best one and her red and blue
_bérets_. Her boots and shoes she arranged very neatly at the bottom
of the cupboard--at least Aaron did for her, for by this time he had
followed her in, and had grown quite friendly, and he worked really
busily until Loveday took out a big monkey and presented it to him,
after which he did nothing but gaze at it and hug it with delight, and
Loveday, who had been a little shy of offering it to him when she saw
how big a boy he was, felt greatly relieved on seeing his pleasure.

“After all,” she said to herself, “he isn’t such a very big boy--he is
_rather_ a baby, and I am very glad.”

Then Bessie came to call them to supper, and soon after that Loveday,
holding tight to her elephant, was sound asleep in her snow-white room;
and Aaron, still hugging his monkey, was snoring contentedly under his
gay patchwork quilt.

“A rare lot of wild beasts we’ve a-got in our little bit of a place
to-night,” said John Lobb, with a hearty laugh. “’Tis lucky they
b’ain’t given to bellowing, or we should be given notice to quit, I
reckon!”

When Loveday awoke the next morning, the first thing she noticed was
the curious dull roar of the sea. Then she opened her eyes and looked
about her. The next moment she was out of bed, drawing back her white
curtains to look out at the new, wonderful world without. There was
little to see, though, from her window, for the cliff rose sheer up,
and between the house and the cliff there was only a little bit of
fenced-in ground. It was too close under the shadow of the cold rock
for anything to grow in it, and the house, though it kept off the wind
and the salt spray, also kept off the sun. To make up for this, John
Lobb had a piece of garden ground at the top of the cliff, where he
worked when he wasn’t out fishing.

But when Loveday looked out he was in the yard at the back, examining
the nets that were spread on the palings to dry. A moment later, Aaron,
still clasping his monkey, ran out and joined his father.

“Oh, Aaron is dressed!” thought Loveday. “I ought to be. Why didn’t
Bessie call me?”

She put her head out of her bedroom door, and called:

“Bessie! Bessie! Please can I have my bath! I am sorry I am so late,”
she added, as Bessie appeared with the bath and the water.

“It isn’t late, Miss Loveday,” said Bessie smilingly. “It has only this
minute gone seven by my old clock, and that’s always galloping.”

“Only seven!” cried Loveday. “What are you all up so early for? Is
anybody going away?”

“’Tisn’t early for us, miss. My husband is going out all day fishing,
and he’s got to catch the tide.”

“There is always something that has got to be caught,” sighed
Loveday--“the train, or the tide, or the fish, or the post. But I’m
very glad I am up so early, now I am up. I want to go out and see what
things are like in the morning. They generally look different then,
don’t they?”

“Oh dear,” she said quite apologetically, when presently she came to
the breakfast-table, “I am afraid I am _very_ hungry. I hope you won’t
be frightened when you see what a lot I eat.”

She really felt quite ashamed of her big appetite, but John and Bessie
only laughed, and John said:

“That’s good hearing, missie. Nothing you can do in that way’ll
frighten us, seeing as we’m ’customed to Aaron and me.”

John sat at the head of the table, nearest the fireplace, while Bessie
sat outside, where she could easily reach the kettle or the teapot on
the stove. Loveday’s chair was placed at the end, facing John, while
the table was pulled out a little way for Aaron to sit in the window
amongst the geraniums and cinerarias. In her heart Loveday wished that
she could sit in there, but at the same time she was rather pleased
with her own position; it seemed older and more dignified.

After breakfast there came the excitement of seeing off the boat, and
then, when that was done, Loveday felt that she really could settle
down for a moment and have time to look about her. Aaron was very
anxious to see her toys and all the other treasures she had brought
with her, for this was a much greater novelty to him than picking up
shells or hunting for crabs, besides which Bessie would not let them
go alone clambering over the rocks, or paddling in the pools, and she
could not go with them for a little while, as she had her house to set
straight and the dinner to get.

So they sat on the sands within sight of Bessie, and played with a
grocer’s shop that Loveday had brought, and a box of cubes, and a
popgun, and a monkey and an elephant, and sundry other things, but
to her surprise none of the things pleased Aaron so much as did the
books. He turned the pages of her fairy-tales over and over, and gazed
at the pictures, and asked questions about them, until at last Loveday
grew quite tired of answering him.

“Haven’t you got any books?” she asked at last rather impatiently,
for she would have been much better pleased to have had his help in
building sand-castles.

“No, I have never had a book in all my life,” he said wistfully. “I
didn’t know there was any with picshers in them like these here.”

“Didn’t you?” cried Loveday, scarcely able to believe him. “I wish I’d
known it; I’d have brought you one of mine.”

“But I knows some stories,” he said proudly--“lots! All ’bout piskies,
and fairies, and giants, and buccas, and----”

“What are buccas?” interrupted Loveday eagerly.

“Why--why, little people, of course,” said Aaron.

Loveday looked at him to see if he was “telling true” or laughing at
her, but Aaron was quite serious.

“Are you telling truth or making up?” she asked.

It was a question she was often obliged to put to Geoffrey and
Priscilla when they told her things.

“True, honour bright,” said Aaron earnestly, just a little indignant.
“Don’t you ever read about buccas in your books?”

Loveday shook her head.

“Are they fairies?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good ones or bad?”

“Good, I b’lieve,” said Aaron. “I never heard of their doing anybody
any harm.”

“Have you ever seen one?” asked Loveday, in a lowered voice.

“No,” said Aaron; “they lives in caves and wells, mostly--so father
says--and they’m always digging. You ask father to tell ’ee about them.”

“No, you tell me. I want to hear about them now. Go on.”

“Well, if I tell you one story, you must tell me one.”

“All right,” said Loveday; “go on. It must be about buccas, ’cause I
never heard about them before, and--and I don’t think there are any.”

“Aw, hush! Don’t ’ee say such things!” cried Aaron, quite scared.
“You’d be sorry if you was to get Barker’s knee, and you will most
likely, if you say things like that. They do all sorts of things to
folks that ’fend them.”

Loveday felt rather frightened, but she would not let Aaron know it if
she could help it.

“I thought you said they were good fairies,” she said half irritably.

“So they are, but fairies never likes folks to say they don’t believe
in ’em. That was how Barker got his bad knee.”

“Go on--tell,” said Loveday.

“Well, ’twas like this: Barker, he was a great lazy fellow what
wouldn’t work nor nothing, and he laughed at those that did; and when
his father said to him that the buccas put him to shame, he said there
wasn’t any, and he said he’d prove it: he’d go to the well where folks
said they lived, and where they could hear them working, and he’d
listen, and he’d listen, and if he heard them he’d believe in them,
but not else. So he went to the well every day, and lay down in the
grass close by all day long. And he heard the little buccas as plain as
plain; they was digging and shovelling and laughing and talking all the
time. But Barker, he wouldn’t tell anybody that he’d heard them, and he
went every day and lay down by the well to listen to them, and soon he
got to understand their talk, and how long they worked; and when they
stopped working they hid away their tools, but they always told where
they was going to hide them.”

“That was silly!” said Loveday. “There’s no sense in doing that.”

“Hoosh!” said Aaron nervously; “you’d best be careful what you’m
saying. One night Barker heard one little bucca say, ‘I’m going to hide
my pick under the ferns.’ ‘I shan’t,’ says another; ‘I shall leave mine
on Barker’s knee.’”

“Oh!” gasped Loveday, “then they knew his name. Did they know all the
time that he was there listening to them?”

“I reckon so,” said Aaron gravely. “Little people knows everything
mostly; that’s why you’ve got to be so careful.”

“Go on,” said Loveday eagerly.

“Well, Barker, he was prettily frightened when he heard that, and he
was just going to jump up and run away, when whump! something hit him
right on the knee like anything, and oh!” groaned Aaron, his eyes big
and round with the excitement of his story, “it ’urt him so he bellowed
like a great bull, and he kept on saying, ‘Take ’em away; take them
there tools away; take your old pick and shovel off my knee, I tell
’e!’ But the little buccas only laughed, and the more he bellowed, the
more they laughed. He tried to get up, but ’twas ever so long before he
could, and he had a stiff knee all the rest of his life.”

“Did people know why?” asked Loveday.

“Yes, that they did, and everybody was fine and careful after not to
laugh at the buccas, for fear they’d get Barker’s knee too.”

“I think,” said Loveday, “I like the piskies best--I mean, of course,
I like the buccas too, but I love the piskies ’cause they come and do
nice things to help people, and I love the fairies ’cause they are so
pretty.”

“There’s a fairy ring up top cliff,” said Aaron, “where they comes and
dances night-times. I’ll show it to you some day.”

“Oh, do!” cried Loveday. “We’ve got one near home, too, but I’ve never
seen any fairies near it--have you?”

“No, but I haven’t been out at night, and that’s when they come.”

“Come along, dears; I am ready now,” said Bessie, appearing at the
door. “Come in and have a glass of milk and some cake, and then we’ll
go and look for crabs and things, shall we?”

Loveday and Aaron were on their feet in a moment.

“I must get my bucket and spade if we are going to get crabs and
shells,” said Loveday, and dashed into the house, leaving all her toys
scattered on the sand.




CHAPTER IX

MISS POTTS COMES TO TEA


Loveday had been gone more than a week, Geoffrey was nearly well again,
and Priscilla was on the mend--the dreadful pain in her head had almost
left her, so had her other aches and bruises, but the broken arm
bothered her a good deal, and she was very weak and languid, so that
it was still necessary that she should be kept very quiet and not be
allowed to exert herself.

She had reached the stage, though, when it becomes tiresome to keep
still; when one wants to do things, yet feels one can’t; or others
want one to do things, and one feels one cannot possibly do them, and
altogether one is cross and teasy without knowing why.

To read made her head ache, and it was tiresome to hold up a book with
only one hand, and to have none to turn the pages with; neither could
she very well play with her dolls, or her bricks, or anything with but
one hand. Her mother read to her sometimes, and talked to her; but,
of course, she could not do so all the time, and Priscilla would have
grown tired even if she could.

“Mother,” she said one day, after every one had tried to think of
something to amuse her, “I know what I would like very, very much
indeed!”

“Well, dear, tell me what it is?”

“I would like to ask Miss Potts to come and see me. I like her _so_
much, and I think she must miss me, because I often went in to talk to
her to cheer her up after I knew she was an ‘only’!”

“Very well, darling; I am going out presently, and I will ask her. I
don’t quite know, though, how she could manage to leave her shop.”

“I don’t think it would matter much if she did--not if she came while
the children are in school, ’cause there isn’t any one else to go and
buy much--except on Saturdays.”

“I see. Well, I will go and talk to her about it, and see what she has
to say.”

Priscilla had always felt drawn to Miss Potts, the quiet, lonely woman
who lived in a world of toys now, yet looked as though she had never
been a child or played with any; and ever since Miss Potts had told her
she was alone in the world, Priscilla had had quite a motherly feeling
for her. She felt quite excited and pleased at the prospect of her
visitor.

She was so pleased, that she did not know how to wait until her mother
came back with the answer to her message; and then she wished, oh so
much, that she had asked if Miss Potts should be invited to tea with
her. Never mind, she decided, she would ask mother that when she came
back with her news. This thought comforted and soothed her so much that
she was able to lie still more contentedly, and wait, and while she
was waiting, her thoughts flew to Loveday. She tried to picture what
she would be doing at that moment. Loveday was not, of course, able
to write much, for she was very young, and she had only just begun to
write real letters; but Bessie had written a good deal about her and
Aaron, and the fun they had; and mother had told her all she possibly
could about the place, and the house, and the sea, and shops, and the
station and everything else she could think of, and now Priscilla was
looking forward to the time when she and Geoffrey would go down to
Porthcallis and join Loveday.

She was just picturing to herself the journey down, and Loveday waiting
for them on the platform, when she heard the front door opened and
closed again.

“Mother must have got back already!” she cried joyfully. “I hope Miss
Potts can come.”

Then she heard footsteps, and a moment later the door opened, and in
came mother, followed by Miss Potts herself! Priscilla could scarcely
believe her eyes.

“Here she is!” cried Mrs. Carlyon. “Here is your longed-for visitor. I
would not let her stay even to put on her best bonnet, or her mantle,
or anything.”

“No; oh dear, no! I don’t know what a sight I am looking, I am sure!”
said Miss Potts nervously. “But your dear ma whisked me off, so I’d no
time to change my frock or do anything but pop on my old second-best
bonnet and shawl. I hope you’ll excuse me----”

Poor Miss Potts chattered on volubly, not because she really minded
much, but because she was shy and nervous, and sometimes shy and
nervous people feel that they must keep on saying something.

Priscilla put out her hand to clasp Miss Potts’s hand, and then put up
her face to be kissed. The tears came into Miss Potts’s faded, tired
eyes as she stooped and kissed her.

“I think you are looking--oh, ever so nice!” said Priscilla warmly. “I
like you in that bonnet better than any. I think it suits you better.”

“Do you really now, missie?” said Miss Potts, evidently relieved and
pleased. “And how are you, dearie? Are you better?”

“Oh yes, thank you,” said Priscilla--“ever so much! I think I shall be
quite well soon, and then we are going to Porthcallis.”

“Dear, dear,” cried Miss Potts, “that will be nice. Nobody could help
getting well down there in the sunshine and sea-breezes.”

“Do you like the sea?” asked Priscilla. “Did you ever stay by it when
you were a little girl?”

“Indeed, I did,” said Miss Potts. “I was born by it, and grew up by it
till I was turned twenty.”

“You were born by the sea!” cried Priscilla. “Oh, how lovely--and I
never knew it!”

Miss Potts at once became more interesting than ever. Priscilla tried
to picture her digging in the sands and wading through the pools.

“But how could you bear to come away?” she cried. “I am sure I should
never leave the sea if I could help it!”

“Ah, my dear, it all depends!” said Miss Potts, with a sad shake of the
head. “I haven’t set eyes on the sea since I left it, and I--I hope I
never do again. I couldn’t bear it, even now.”

“Oh, how sad!” said Priscilla, looking at her with wide eyes full of
sympathetic interest. “Did your little brothers and sisters live there
too?” she asked gently.

“Yes, missie, and died there,” said Miss Potts sadly. “Every one of us
but mother and me; that’s why I’ve never looked on it since. To me it
is like a great, sly, deceitful monster, always sighing and moaning for
somebody, or foaming and storming in rage. We came away, mother and me,
after the last was drowned; we couldn’t bear it any longer.”

“Poor Miss Potts!” said little Priscilla, laying her hand on Miss
Potts’s worn ones, moving so restlessly in her lap.

Mrs. Carlyon had gone away and left them together, and Miss Potts had
dropped into a chair close to Priscilla’s sofa.

“You don’t think the sea will roar for Loveday, and swallow her up, do
you?” asked Priscilla, in a very anxious voice.

“Oh no, my dear; Porthcallis is a very safe place!” said Miss Potts
emphatically. “P’r’aps I shouldn’t have told you anything about--about
my experience. But where we lived it was very wild and rocky, and my
folk were all seafaring; ’twas their work to go to sea. Out of all my
family that lies in the burying-ground, only two of them are men; all
the rest of our men-folk lies at the bottom of the sea.”

“But you had sisters, hadn’t you, Miss Potts?”

“Yes, dear, two; but the sea had them as well. One of them, Annie--she
was the youngest--was out shrimping by herself one day, when the tide
caught her and carried her out. Hettie saw her, and ran into the sea
to save her, but----”

“Yes?” whispered Priscilla softly, her eyes full of tears. “Couldn’t
she reach her?”

“Yes, she reached her. Father, coming home that night from the fishing,
found them clasped together, and brought them home,” said poor Miss
Potts. “I never saw a smile on his face from that day till just a year
later, when the sea claimed him too.”

“Oh, how dreadful! I shall never like the sea again,” said Priscilla,
wiping away her tears. “I don’t wonder you came away. Did you come
straight to Trelint?”

“Yes,” said Miss Potts more cheerfully; “and I felt at home here at
once. I shouldn’t care to live anywhere else now.”

“Neither should I,” said Priscilla. “I love home, and Trelint, and--oh,
everything; and I would rather live here than by the sea, after all.”

Mrs. Carlyon opened the door, and put her head in.

“Alma is going to bring you some tea presently,” she said brightly.
“Miss Potts said she could stay and have some with you. I am sorry to
say I have to go out, but I know you will take care of each other.
Good-bye, darling, for the time.”

Priscilla beamed with pleasure.

“That is just what I was wanting. I am so glad you can stay, Miss
Potts. I don’t s’pose any one will go to the shop, do you?”

She did not for a moment mean to be rude or unkind.

“No, I expect not,” said Miss Potts a little sadly.

But in a moment or two the door opened again, and in walked Geoffrey.
At sight of Miss Potts he drew up, and stepped back towards the door as
though thunderstruck.

“Ah!” he cried, in a hollow, melodramatic voice, “here she is! False
woman, I have found you. For ten minutes and more have I been kicking
your door with my noble toes----”

Miss Potts groaned.

“And the paint but just dry!” she murmured.

“But no answer could I get,” went on Geoffrey, “and at last”--lowering
his voice and continuing in a tragic whisper--“at last I dropped
my ha’penny back into my pocket and came away. ‘I must lay it out
elsewhere,’ I moaned. But when I reached Ma Tickell’s shop, Pa Tickell
was behind the door, and in his eye I read that he was going to request
me to say my ‘twelve times’ backwards, and I knew he would not believe
that my illness alone had made me forget it, so I crossed over and
gazed in sadly at Ma Wall’s, but Ma Wall looked at me so scornfully
that I came home; and here I find you gossip, gossip, gossip, and my
ha’penny burning a hole in my pocket all the time. You know, Miss
Potts, it is not the way to do business.”

“I know,” said Miss Potts, laughing; “but if you can tell me what you
wanted particularly I’ll send it up as soon as I get home.”

“I couldn’t,” said Geoffrey solemnly; “I must see things before I can
lay out my money to the best advantage.”

“Well, I promise not to be very long, Master Geoffrey, and then you
shall go back with me, if you will, and choose what you like.”

“What is this nice little parcel?” asked Geoffrey, touching one that
had been lying on the table ever since Miss Potts came in.

“Oh,” cried Miss Potts, jumping up with a little scream--“oh, how
foolish of me! Why, that’s something I brought for Miss Priscilla, if
she’ll accept it; and with talking so much, and being so glad to see
her, it had clean gone out of my head;” and she placed the nice-looking
little parcel in Priscilla’s hands.

“Well,” exclaimed Geoffrey, pretending to be deeply hurt, “I think you
might have thought of my feelings, and waited till I had gone away. I
felt certain it was for me, and now----”

Poor Miss Potts looked quite troubled, but Priscilla’s joyful cry rang
out before she could speak.

“Oh, how lovely! Oh, you dear, kind Miss Potts! Look, Geoffrey; we can
both use it. Isn’t it lovely?” and Priscilla held out a box of paints,
just such another as they had bought for Loveday. “And they are _sans
poison_, too.”

“Good!” cried Geoffrey. “Now I’ll be able to paint for you while you
look on. Miss Potts, you _are_ a dear; you understand a fellow’s
feelings before he understands them himself.”

Priscilla leaned up to kiss her thanks.

“I wonder how you always know exactly what people want?” she said
gravely.

“P’r’aps it’s through my having a pretty good memory,” said Miss
Potts, flushing and smiling with pleasure. “I seem able to remember
what I used to think I’d like when I was little myself.”

“And then, were you very glad--as glad as I am--when you got what you’d
been thinking about?” asked Priscilla.

“I never got it, my dear,” said Miss Potts; “’twas all in my thoughts,
and never got beyond. But I had a fine lot of pleasure that way; ’twas
almost as good as having the things themselves, I think.”

“Oh no, not quite,” said Priscilla, turning to her paint-box again.

Then Nurse came in with the tea, and laid it on a table close to
Priscilla’s sofa. Miss Potts seemed rather nervous and fluttery at
having tea there with the children, but very pleased; and Nurse smiled
on her, and admired the paint-box, and brought in some especial cakes,
because she remembered Miss Potts liked them, and everything and
everybody was as nice as nice could be.

It was a beautiful tea that they had--at least, to them it seemed so,
and Miss Potts often afterwards spoke of it, and sat and thought about
it in the long, quiet evenings she spent alone in the dark little
parlour behind her shop. They did not hurry over the meal--in fact,
they lingered so long that Mrs. Carlyon returned before they had done,
and presently the carriage drove up, bringing back Dr. Carlyon from his
afternoon rounds.

When Mrs. Carlyon stooped over her little daughter to kiss her, Prissy
put her one arm round her mother’s neck and drew her face down close.
She knew it was not polite to whisper in company, but she wanted
_very_ much to ask a very, very important question, and she would have
no other opportunity; and as Miss Potts was talking to Geoffrey, and
Nurse was rattling the tea-things, she thought no one would notice that
she was doing more than return her mother’s kiss.

Mrs. Carlyon quickly heard the whispered request, and, going out of the
room under the pretence of removing her hat, soon returned with a thin,
large envelope, which she slipped under Priscilla’s sofa-pillow. Then
Miss Potts got up to go.

“I hope you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Carlyon, for staying so long. I didn’t
mean to be more than a minute, and I’ve been the best part of two
hours.”

She went over to Priscilla to say “Good-bye.” It was quite an ordeal to
her to make her farewells and leave the room under the eyes of so many.
She wanted to express her gratitude, but she was afraid of saying too
much; she was also afraid of saying too little and seeming ungrateful.

“Good-bye, Miss Priscilla,” she said. “I--I hope you will soon be well
and able to run about again.”

“Thank you,” said Priscilla politely. She was rather nervous and
excited too, and her eyes were bright and eager. “I shall come to see
you before I go to Porthcallis, and--and here is something I’ve got for
you, but you mustn’t look at it until you get home. It is something
to keep you from feeling quite so lonely when you are in your little
parlour by yourself after the shop is shut.”

“Thank you, missie, I am sure,” said Miss Potts gratefully.

And whether she guessed what was in the packet no one ever knew, but
she seemed very pleased and overcome. And when the poor lonely woman
got back, as Priscilla said, to her lonely parlour behind the closed
shop, and, opening the envelope, looked on the three bright faces in
the photograph, her tears really did overflow--tears of pleasure and
gratitude for the beautiful photograph, but most of all for the kind
thought and affection which had prompted the gift.

“Dear little lady,” she said, gazing affectionately at Priscilla’s
eager, serious face and wondering eyes; “she’s got a heart of gold;
while as for that dear boy, why, I love every hair of his head and
every tone of his voice, and the more he tries to tease me the more I
love him, I think; and as for little Miss Loveday, why, no one could
help loving her if one tried to.”




CHAPTER X

THE FAIRY RING


Loveday, meanwhile, was having a most interesting and beautiful time,
and she and Aaron had become great friends. They had some little tiffs
and quarrels too, of course, but not very serious ones.

The most serious perhaps was that when they disagreed about their
names, when Loveday was certainly rather unkind, and Aaron grew angry
and was rude. They were both tired, and very hungry; so hungry that it
seemed as though the dinner hour was delaying on purpose.

“I don’t know why people think they mustn’t eat till the clock strikes
so many times,” said Loveday crossly; “I think it would be much more
sensible to eat when you are hungry.”

“You’ve got to know what time dinner is to be, or you wouldn’t know
when to put things on to cook. I should have thought you’d have known
that,” said Aaron; and he spoke in a tone that annoyed Loveday more
than anything--a kind of superior, older tone, as though he were
talking to a baby.

Loveday did not reply, but sat and looked at Aaron as if in deep
thought; her eyes sparkled wickedly, though. “I do think,” she said at
last, speaking very slowly and distinctly, “that yours is the ugliest
name I ever heard. I can’t think how any one could choose such a name!”

She was sitting on the sand, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her
hand. Aaron was lying near her, flat on his back. When he heard her he
sat up very straight, his face quite red with anger. Loveday was cool
and calm, and spoke with a deliberate scorn that hurt him more than
anything else she could have done.

His name was that of his father and grandfather, and he had been rather
proud of it hitherto.

“I--I think it’s a fine name,” he stammered; “so does everybody but
you; and you can’t say anything, yours is ugly enough--it’s a silly
name too.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Loveday calmly. “I think it is a very
pretty name, so does everybody; but of course you don’t know, you are
so young.”

“Yes, I do,” blustered Aaron; “I know as well as anybody, and I call it
ugly, a silly _girl’s_ name,” with great scorn.

“Well, of course, I shouldn’t be called by a boy’s name,” she retorted
scornfully; “but if I had been a boy, and they’d christened me Aaron,
why, I--I wouldn’t answer to it!”

“Wouldn’t you!” scoffed Aaron; “you’d have been only too glad to.”

“There are so many pretty names too,” went on Loveday, ignoring his
last remark, and gazing at him in a musing way. “Douglas, and Gerald,
and Ronald, and----”

“I’d be ’shamed to be called by any of them, silly things! Just like a
girl’s!”

“Yes, but they aren’t--they’re for boys; you might just as well say my
name was like a boy’s--it is rather like some.” Then, after looking at
him thoughtfully for a moment, she added slowly, “I think I shall call
you ‘Adolphus,’ Aaron is so ugly.”

“If you do, I won’t answer,” cried Aaron, springing to his feet, really
angry now; “you ain’t going to call me out of my name. If you do,
I’ll--I’ll call you Jane!”

Loveday giggled. “I don’t mind a bit!” she said gaily; “I am christened
that already, and my sister is called Priscilla Mary, and you are going
to be called Aaron Adolphus.”

“I’m not! I shan’t speak to you, and I won’t answer to it,” began
Aaron, when suddenly his mother’s voice called to them across the sands.

“Come along, children--dinner is ready at last!”

Loveday sprang at once to her feet. “Come along, Adolphus,” she said
naughtily. If Aaron had but laughed, and taken no notice of her
teasing, Loveday would probably have found no fun in it, and have
stopped very soon, but he was very cross indeed, and sulked over his
dinner, and the afternoon might have been spoilt if Bessie had not been
so good-tempered and kind.

“We are going to change our names,” said Loveday, beginning her teasing
again as soon as they had begun to eat.

“Oh!” said Bessie, “and what are you to be called now?”

“Well, Aaron is to be called Adolphus, only he doesn’t seem to like it,
and I am called Jane, and you--let me see, I’ll call you--” Loveday
thought and thought, but could not think of anything that quite
pleased her.

“Well, I don’t mind what it is,” said Bessie, “as long as you don’t
call me ‘Bread and Cheese,’ and eat me.” It was an old saying, but
a new one to the children, and they both laughed so much that Aaron
forgot his sulks, and Loveday her teasing.

“I will call you Mother Dutch Cheese,” laughed Aaron.

“Then there won’t be much of me left by to-morrow,” said Bessie,
pretending to look frightened.

“I will call you--” began Loveday, speaking very slowly, for she was
trying all the time to think of something very funny to say.

“I wonder,” said Bessie, “if, instead of thinking what you shall call
me, you would like to pay a call for me this afternoon?”

The children looked at her, not quite understanding. Bessie explained:

“I want Aaron to go up to Mr. Winter’s with a message, and I thought
you would like to go too, Miss Loveday.”

“I’d love to!” cried Loveday, who had been longing ever since she came
to Porthcallis to go up the cliff-path to the very top, mounting the
little steps, and holding on by the little rail. “When shall we go?
Now?”

“Finish your dinner first, and sit still for a bit; then I will tidy
you both, for Mr. Winter’s housekeeper, Mrs. Tucker, is a very noticing
body.”

After the meal was over, and Aaron had said grace, and they had with
great difficulty kept quiet for a little while, Bessie began to tidy
them. Aaron, beyond having a good wash and his hair brushed, had only a
clean holland tunic put on, but Loveday was anxious to make more of a
toilette.

“Don’t you think,” she said, “that I had better put on this?” dragging
out from the drawer a pretty little frock of white silk muslin with
blue harebells all over it.

“Oh no,” said Bessie; “one of your little cotton over-alls will be much
the best.”

Loveday looked disappointed and doubtful; in her heart she felt sure
that Bessie did not know what was correct.

“But if Mr. Winter was to see me----”

“Oh dear, you needn’t trouble about Mr. Winter; he keeps well out of
the way if there is anybody about; but if he did happen to see you, he
wouldn’t know whether you’d got on silk or cotton, or blue or yellow.”

“I think he’d notice my white silk sash with the roses on it.”

“Well, I don’t, missie. But if he did, he’d only think it was very
unsuitable for going up and down cliff-paths; and so it is, too. If you
were to slip, why, you’d most likely ruin it for ever. Now be a good
little girl, and if you want to please Mr. Winter or Mrs. Tucker with
your looks, you’ll go in your nice clean print over-all and sun-hat.
You shall wear a white belt about your waist, for fear you might trip
on your loose frock going up that steep path.”

Loveday was not satisfied, but she was so pleased and excited at the
thought of going to the big, mysterious house where the blinds were
always drawn, and the master was never seen, that she had no room
for any other feeling, and they started off in great good humour.

[Illustration: “‘DON’T LET US LOOK ANY MORE.’”]

Aaron was so afraid that Loveday would remember and call him Adolphus
again, that he did all he could to keep her mind off it, and talked
incessantly, telling her such wonderful tales.

“If Mrs. Tucker doesn’t keep us too long,” said Aaron, “I’ll show
you the Fairy Ring, where they come and dance every night at twelve
o’clock. It is right on top of the cliff, and not far from Mr.
Winter’s.”

“That will be lovely!” cried Loveday delightedly. “Let’s sit down for a
minute; I’m tired.”

So they sat down on one of the little steps, and looked down and around
and all about them. Already the cottage seemed ever so far off, and so
tiny.

“It looks as if there could be only one little room in it, doesn’t it?”
said Loveday. “And oh, how far away the sea looks, and that little
boat! Why, it is quite a little teeny-tiny thing. Oh, don’t let’s look
any more; it makes my head go round so.”

“I’ll sit outside,” said Aaron; “it won’t seem so bad then.”

They changed places, but even then Loveday did not like it.

“Let’s go on,” she said, “up where we can’t see any of it.”

So on they went, and at last reached the green grassy top, and a bit of
road which led to the gate of Mr. Winter’s house.

Though Loveday had heard about the closed house and the drawn blinds,
it still gave her quite a shock when she saw it. There was such a
look of desolation, and sadness, and neglect about the whole place.
On the side facing the sea, the flower-beds were overgrown with weeds
and flowers which straggled about in a wild tangle, clinging together
and choking each other; the drawn blinds were faded, the frames of the
fast-shut windows were cracked, and badly in want of some coats of
paint. A rose-bush, that at one time must have almost covered the front
of the house, had fallen, perhaps during the storms of the past winter,
and as it fell so it lay, twisted and broken, and choking the wretched
plants which were beneath it.

Loveday felt quite saddened by the sight of it all, and the story of
the poor drowned boy and his heart-broken father became terribly real
to her--so real that she longed to be able to do something to comfort
the poor man. “If only he would open his blinds and windows, and have
his garden tidied up, I’m sure he wouldn’t feel so miserable. I think I
should cry all day long if I lived here,” she whispered.

The situation of the house itself seemed almost too lonely to be borne.
There was no other dwelling-place, or sign of human being, within
sight, only a wide, wide space of bare brown fields on two sides; the
grassy cliff-tops with the sea in the distance on the third; and on the
fourth nothing but the heaving, calling sea; while the wind, always
blowing there, swept along unchecked, winter or summer, storm or calm,
keeping up an incessant wailing around the house; and the wail of the
wind and the call of the gulls alone broke the silence.

It was not to be wondered at that a feeling of awe fell on whomsoever
entered that gate. It fell on both the children now, and they walked
up softly, almost stealthily, for the sound of their footsteps on the
white pebbles seemed to jar in that sad silence. Aaron led the way, and
Loveday followed, holding fast to his tunic. She was glad now that she
had not worn her smart frock or sash; for even she, young as she was,
felt that they would have been out of place there and then.

Aaron led the way to what was presumably the front door, but a door
so bare of paint, so neglected looking, that Loveday thought it could
never be used. The stones of the steps were green, and the weeds grew
up between them. But in answer to Aaron’s knock the door was quickly
opened by Mrs. Tucker, the housekeeper. She looked keenly at Loveday,
but she did not say anything, and when she had taken the note Aaron had
brought, and heard his message, she went in and closed the door again
quite sharply. But in the moment or so it had been open Loveday had had
time to catch a glimpse of a big stone hall, and a grandfather’s clock,
which ticked with the hollow note clocks in empty houses usually have.

Mrs. Tucker looked so glum and unsmiling that the children were quite
glad to get away from her, and they hurried out of the garden much more
quickly than they entered it.

Once outside, Aaron seemed to lose his awe, and his spirits returned,
but Loveday did not so soon recover. She felt she wanted to do
something for Mr. Winter to make him feel less sad and uncomfortable,
yet she felt quite helpless, especially since she had seen Mrs. Tucker.
If one had to get past her before one could see him, it really seemed
as though it never could be done.

“Now then for the Fairy Ring,” said Aaron, as soon as they got outside.

In their relief at getting away from that grim place, they both took to
their heels and ran over a great stretch of short grass, burnt brown
and slippery by the hot sun, until they came to a large level space on
almost the edge of the cliff, and there on the brown coarse turf stood
out a large ring of grass, so lush and rich and green that there must
surely have been some hidden spring which fed it, or the fairies must
indeed have been at work.

“It keeps green like that ’cause the fairies dance there,” said Aaron,
with pride and awe.

Loveday jumped carefully over the green ring and stood in the centre.

“I expect they’d be angry if I stepped on it--wouldn’t they?” she asked.

They both spoke softly, as though half afraid of disturbing or
offending the “little people.” Aaron jumped over too and joined her,
and both sat down in the middle of the ring and tried to picture the
wonderful scenes that took place there at night.

“I wonder where they live by day, and which way they come here,” she
asked, looking about her eagerly.

“I reckon they come every way,” said Aaron. “Some live in the flowers
and things, and some in caves and shells, I believe.”

“Do you think the piskies come too, and the buccas, and all?”

Aaron shook his head.

“I reckon those that have got to work don’t get no time for dancing.”

“I think I like the piskies the best,” said Loveday thoughtfully; “but,
of course, I love them all!” she added hastily, in a louder voice, for
she did not want to hurt any one’s feelings, and fairies were very
easily offended, she had heard. “Of course, I love them all; but I do
love the piskies very much, ’cause they work and play too; they come
and do people’s work for them and look after them, and then they dance,
and are such jolly little things.”

“They take care of my daddy,” said Aaron gravely. “Sometimes he’s got
to be out to sea all night, fishing, and it is dark, and the wind
blowing, and the rain coming down like anything.”

“My daddy has got to be out all night too, very often,” chimed in
Loveday, not to be outdone in importance by Aaron, “and he’s got to
drive all through the thunder and lightning and snow, and sometimes
it is _so_ slippery Betty can’t hardly walk, but daddy’s _got_ to go
’cause somebody is ill.”

“But he doesn’t have to go on the sea,” said Aaron, “and p’r’aps be
drowned.”

“He has to drive, and horses tumble down, and run away, and wheels come
off and all sorts of things,” said Loveday, not to be outdone.

“But there are sharks and whales and--and torpedoes at sea,” went on
Aaron; but Loveday pretended not to hear him; and suddenly it occurred
to him that, if he aggravated her too much, she might begin to call him
“Adolphus” again; so he hurriedly changed the conversation.

“I wish I could see some piskies at work--don’t you?” said Aaron.

“Oh yes!” sighed Loveday. “Do you think we could if we stayed up till
twelve o’clock one night?”

“I don’t know; I never heard of anybody hereabouts seeing them. Perhaps
they don’t come to these parts now.”

“I don’t think they do, or they would tidy Mr. Winter’s garden for him
and weed his path. It is _very_ untidy, isn’t it? It looks just like a
place no one lives in.”

Aaron nodded; he had never seen it in any other condition, so was not
so much impressed as was Loveday.

“I wish I could make it nice for him. I’d like to make it look so
nice--all in one night--that when he came out he’d be--oh! ever so
s’prised, and he’d wonder and wonder who had done it, and he’d say:
‘Why, a fairy must have been here at work.’ That’s what father and
mother say sometimes.”

Aaron looked at her with interest. He liked to hear her stories of her
home, and what she did there. Some of them were very wonderful. But
Loveday had no stories to tell that afternoon; she was very thoughtful
and quiet, and sat for quite a long time without speaking. Aaron began
at last to grow tired of staying still, and was just about to get up,
when she suddenly turned to him, all excitement:

“I’ve been thinking, and I’ve thought of--oh, _ever_ such a nice plan.
Let’s play that we are piskies, and come up in the night and tidy Mr.
Winter’s garden for him, and make him think it is a fairy that has done
it, and--and then we’d come again, and he’d think the fairies had been
again. Shall we, Aaron? Oh, do say yes; and it will be a secret, and
nobody must ever know, and everybody will wonder--and oh, it will be
simply, simply splendid.”

Aaron listened eagerly, quite carried away by her enthusiasm. Loveday,
with her ideas, her wild plans, and strange thoughts, was a constant
wonder to him, and where she led he followed--if he could.

“Won’t all the folks be wondering and talking when it gets about?” he
cried excitedly, “and won’t it be funny to be listening to them, and we
knowing all the time all ’bout it! Oh, it’ll be grand!”

For quite a long while they sat and discussed their plans delightedly,
and of course there were a great many plans to be made. Aaron it was
who first saw difficulties in the way of carrying them out.

“But how’re we going to get out in the night?” he cried. “Mother and
father would hear us. ’Twould be dark, too, and if we was to slip and
fall climbing up the cliff, we’d be killed as dead as--as dead as
pilchards.”

“Pilchards don’t fall down cliffs,” said Loveday scornfully.

But she was obliged to admit that there were difficulties which would
not be very easy to get over, and they walked about with very anxious,
serious faces and dampened spirits--it did seem bitter to be balked now.

“I think I know what we can do,” said Loveday at last; “isn’t it light
very early in the morning now?”

“Yes, it’s full day by four o’clock, and earlier,” said Aaron.

“Well, we’ll get up then, and we can get out of my window quite easily,
and then we can run up the cliff and be piskies till it’s time to come
home; then we’ll run down and jump into bed, and then, when Bessie
calls us, we’ll be asleep; and we’ll get up, and nobody won’t know
anything. We can do that, can’t we?”

“Yes,” agreed Aaron, “I reckon we might; but I think we’d best be going
home now--it feels like tea-time, and mother will be wondering where
we’ve got to.”




CHAPTER XI

LOVEDAY AND AARON PLAY AT BEING PISKIES


Loveday could scarcely sleep at all that night, she was so afraid that
they would not wake up early enough to start. In fact, she was so
afraid of oversleeping that after Bessie had seen her to bed and said
“Good-night,” she slipped out again and put on some of her clothes,
partly that she might be so far dressed when morning came, and partly
that the discomfort of them might prevent her sleeping too soundly.

Her plan answered well. All night she was constantly turning and
waking, and she was glad enough when daylight came at last. She did
not know what the time was, but she got up, and, tiptoeing out, called
Aaron. It was not very easy to wake him; he had not troubled to
sleep in his clothes, or to do anything else to make him wake early.
Loveday, afraid to shout at him, or to make any noise at all, took the
water-bottle, thinking that a drop or two of water on his face might
answer better than anything, but the water, unfortunately, did not
drop--it poured all down his face and neck in a cold stream, and Aaron
started up with a howl which filled Loveday with dismay and vexation.

“Oh, you silly, you!” she cried crossly; “do be quiet, and don’t be so
stupid. Don’t you remember what we are going to do?”

“Yes,” said Aaron, cross enough himself now, “but I want to go to
sleep.” He did not feel at all in the mood for playing at being
a pisky. Loveday, though, was determined, and after a moment the
sleepiness and crossness passed, and he began to feel the excitement of
their plan.

“Make haste and dress,” said Loveday firmly. “I shan’t be long.”

And in a remarkably short space of time they had dressed and crept out
of her window, and were scrambling hurriedly up the steep cliff-path.

“Oh, how lovely!”

Young as she was, Loveday had to keep on stopping to admire the beauty
of the scene; the sea, and sky, and land, all radiant in the glorious
glow of sunrise, the sparkling heavy sea, the towering cliffs, and over
all the singing of happy birds. More than once they had to pause on
their way and gaze about them.

“I wish we could always get up as early as this,” sighed Loveday. “I
think I shall, and I’ll try and make Priscilla and Geoffrey get up too;
the other parts of the day are never so pretty. I wish Prissy could see
it now.”

“I’ve seen it like this scores of times,” said Aaron, in a tone that
implied: “This is nothing to me; I am used to it.”

“And yet you wanted to stay on in bed and sleep,” flashed Loveday
scornfully.

But with so much before them to be done, they could not linger long
to gaze, and presently making up their minds not to stop again, they
hurried on as fast as they could, and by the time they reached Mr.
Winter’s gate they were too full of their own daring to have any
thoughts to spare for anything else.

“I can’t think why people have such horrid noisy stuff put on their
paths,” said Loveday, after they had made several vain attempts to
creep over the loose pebbles without making a sound. She was glancing
up at the windows all the time, for it really seemed to her that their
attempts must have roused every one in the house.

“What shall we do first?” she whispered to Aaron. “I think the
flower-beds look the worst of all, but if they never draw up the blinds
they won’t see how nice we’ve made them.”

And if this was not quite the real reason, and if Loveday’s courage did
fail at the thought of setting things right there, who could wonder
when one looked at the state of the place? It was a task which would
have taken two or three men many days of hard work.

“Shall we begin by weeding the steps and the path before the door?” she
suggested, and, Aaron agreeing, they fell to work busily.

“Does Mr. Winter ever come out of this door and walk here?” she asked.

She was very full of curiosity as to Mr. Winter and his doings.

“Yes,” said Aaron; “he comes out this way to go to that garden over
there, where they grow fruit and vegetables. He takes a brave bit of
interest in that garden.”

Loveday sat back on her heels, and looked in the direction Aaron was
pointing.

“He built a high wall all round it, so’s he shouldn’t see the sea and
nobody shouldn’t see him.”

“I think we’ve done enough here for one day, don’t you?” sighed
Loveday, who detested weeding.

“That I do,” declared Aaron emphatically.

“Can’t we do something in that garden now, where Mr. Winter would see
it, and be glad, and wonder who did it?”

Aaron nodded, and rose stiffly to his feet. “I wish ’twas
breakfast-time,” he sighed.

Loveday thought the kitchen-garden by far the nicest bit that she had
seen yet of Mr. Winter’s grounds. She felt safer there, too, for she
could not be seen from the house, nor heard, and the place itself did
not seem so hopeless of improvement. There was plenty to be done, or so
they thought, but what they did, did make some show.

“I think we will tidy away all that straw first of all,” she said; “it
makes that bed look so untidy, and I expect all the slugs and snails go
to sleep in it. We can’t burn it to-day, so we’ll put it in a heap here
for the time, and perhaps to-morrow we’ll bring some matches. If we’re
very early nobody will see the smoke.”

But Aaron was doubtful of that.

“Porthcallis folks gets up early,” he said, “and father might see it as
he brought the boat in. The smoke would show for miles round.”

They found a supply of tools in a shed in the garden, but they were
rather big and heavy, so they gathered up the straw in their arms, and
carried it away, which caused a good deal of running over the bed, and
left many footprints.

“I think we ought to rake it over before we go,” said Loveday, looking
at it rather anxiously; “nobody would think piskies’ feet had left
marks like that.”

Aaron agreed, and between them they used the long rake, until the bed
looked really quite nice and tidy.

“Oh dear,” sighed Loveday, as they put away the tools at last, “I think
piskies must get very tired.”

“And hungry, too!” sighed Aaron, who felt famished.

“I am starving,” said Loveday, “but I think it must be nearly
breakfast-time.”

“It isn’t five yet, I believe,” said Aaron dolefully; “and breakfast
won’t be ready till past seven.”

“More than two hours to wait!” gasped Loveday; “I can’t, I simply
can’t. Don’t you think we’ve done enough for one day?” she asked, after
a moment’s pause.

“Don’t I!” said Aaron, in a tone which said plainly that on this matter
he had no doubt.

Very, very carefully the pair crept out of the kitchen-garden, past the
house, and over the pebbled path.

“I wish we had made that part look a little nicer,” said Loveday,
glancing with tired, wistful eyes over the desolate bit of ground
around the house, “but I s’pose even piskies couldn’t do it all at
once, could they?”

“No, not unless there are hundreds of ’em,” said Aaron, “and we’m only
two.”

The glorious hues were fading fast from the sky now, and the sun shone
with the pale clear light of early morning. The sea still sparkled,
and the birds sang, but the children paid little heed to either; they
were too hungry and tired. The walk home was rather a silent one, and
they got into the house so easily that there was no excitement there
to arouse them. With scarcely a word they quietly separated, slipped
off their things and crept into their beds again, and, fortunately for
them, soon fell asleep and forgot their hunger.

“Well, I never! What a sleepy-head!” cried Bessie some time later.
“What’s the matter with you both, I wonder? I had to strip the
bed-clothes off Aaron and pull away his pillows before I could rouse
him, and here are you, Miss Loveday, pretty nearly as bad. Come along,
jump up! Here’s your bath, and breakfast will be ready in half-an-hour.
You won’t go to sleep again, will you, dear?”

“No-o,” said Loveday, in a very, very drowsy voice, “but I--I think
you’d better lift me out, Bessie, or--p’r’aps--I may----”

And Bessie took her at her word, and lifted her right out of her snug
little bed and stood her on the floor.

But more than once that day Bessie looked at them both with a puzzled
face. “I don’t know when I’ve seen them look so tired,” she said to
herself. “I s’pose it’s the weather.” And later in the day, when she
went to call them in to tea, and found Loveday curled up on the sand,
sound asleep, her spade and bucket lying beside her--and Aaron fast
asleep too, his book fallen out of his hand--she looked puzzled
again, and rather troubled. “It can’t be anything but the weather, I
should think,” she murmured; “I don’t think they can be sickening for
anything, they ain’t a bit feverish, and their appetites are good.” And
after their nap and their tea they were so bright and lively again,
that Bessie’s fears all vanished, and the weather was, as usual, blamed
unjustly.

“I wonder,” Loveday whispered many times during the day--“I wonder
what Mr. Winter thought when he saw what we’d done? I wonder if he saw
it, and if he was very, very glad? Do you think he would think about
piskies, and guess that they did it?”

“I dunno,” said Aaron stolidly. “I reckon he don’t put down nothing for
fairies and such-like; but there isn’t nobody else that could do it.”

That night they took care to hide some of their supper in their pockets
for the morning. Aaron was not quite so excited about the pisky plan
as he had been, but Loveday was full of it; the thought of what they
had done and of Mr. Winter’s pleasure gave her fresh zeal and energy.
She longed for the next morning to come, that she might look again on
what they had done, and work more wonders. This time she determined
that they really would try to make the garden near the house look
neater; they would not shirk it a second time, but would really begin
to work at it at once, and give all their time and attention to it.
Again she slept in her clothes, and again she called Aaron very early.
This morning, though, there was no glorious sunrise to cheer or delay
them; the dawn was grey and chilly; a wet sea-fog hung over everything,
making it damp and dull. No birds sang to-day. As the children
mounted the cliff, the world below seemed cut off from them, and they
themselves might have been in cloudland.

“Now it really does seem as though we had walked into the sky,” said
Loveday. “I am glad Priscilla isn’t here; she would be frightened, I
expect, but of course I know all about it.”

Though they had no sunshine or beauty to gaze at, they had bread to
eat, and that helped to keep up their spirits and their energies.

“I wonder if real piskies come out in weather like this,” said Loveday,
laughing at the white fringe of mist which outlined Aaron’s stubby head
and blue cap, and her own curls and scarlet _béret_. “We look like
Father Christmas.”

The damp made the pebbles on the garden path less noisy to walk over,
so that they got up to the house more easily, but before they began
their attack on the most neglected part, they decided that they must
have one peep at their work of yesterday; so they crept into the
kitchen-garden and down to the cleared bed. But, to their amazement and
disgust, there was no cleared bed! They looked and looked, and stared
at each other and back again, but there was no mistake. Some one or
something had spread straw all over it again, and it was just as untidy
as ever!

“That _must_ be the wicked fairies!” cried Loveday indignantly. “The
nasty, naughty, wicked things! They got here first, and this is what
they have done, just to annoy us and Mr. Winter! It is _too_ bad. I
only hope he saw it yesterday as we left it for him. I think it’s
dreadful of them to annoy a poor man like that, when he’s so sad. I
don’t know how they can behave so!”

“Aw, it’s just like ’em,” said Aaron gravely. “They don’t care, they’m
that bad.”

He was looking very solemn and rather nervous; he really did not like
having to do with any place or thing that the wicked fairies had been
near; for if they were vexed they did not care, as he said, what they
did to the person who vexed them. He was for hurrying away to another
part of the garden, and was actually starting, when, to his horror, he
saw Loveday collecting the straw from the bed again.

“Don’t; you’d better not touch it!” he cried. “If the bad ones put it
there, they’ll pay you out fine for meddling.”

“I don’t care,” said Loveday. “It’s poor Mr. Winter I’m thinking about,
and I don’t care what they do. I am going to make his garden nice for
him, poor man!”

And she went to work again in a way that showed that she meant it.

“Come along, Aaron,” she cried. “You needn’t leave me to do it all. Do
help.”

Aaron was divided. He did not much like the idea of working by himself
in another part of the garden, and he did not relish the task before
him, but in the end he stood by Loveday very pluckily, and soon they
had once more collected all the straw and raked up the bed as before.

“I _wish_ I had brought a box of matches,” said Loveday hotly; “then
I’d burn the straw, and they wouldn’t be able to play such a trick
again.”

“You needn’t burn it,” said Aaron; “we’ll carry it away and heave it
to cliff. If they gets it and brings it back from there--well, they’m
welcome to.”

Loveday agreed with delight, and both of them chuckled many times over
their cleverness in out-witting the “little people” as they struggled
to pack the straw into two bundles bound round by Loveday’s over-all
and Aaron’s tunic. It was not a very easy task, and the garden and the
path over which they dragged their loads were not quite as neat and
speckless as fairy fingers would have left them. But the pair did not
see that; all their thoughts were bent on “heaving” the straw over
the cliff into the sea. And perhaps it was well for their parents and
those who loved them, that they did not see those two as they leaned
over the edge of the steep cliff-top and shook out their pinafores over
the dizzy heights, then watched the straw as it whirled down and down
to those awful depths below, where the sea dashed and foamed like a
caldron, lashed to anger by the sharp rocks on which it flung itself.
An inch or so farther, the least slip, the merest over-balancing as
they shook out their loads, and they too would have gone whirling down
through the mist, to the jagged rocks, and the hungry waves all those
feet below, and no earthly power could have saved them from a fearful
death.

[Illustration: “THEY SHOOK OUT THEIR PINAFORES OVER THE DIZZY
HEIGHTS.”]




CHAPTER XII

THE PISKIES CAUGHT


Both Aaron and Loveday were very tired when, for the third time, they
rose at dawn, crept out of the house, and up the cliff; and if it had
not been for the excitement of seeing what their enemies had done to
the vegetable bed during the night, they would probably have left their
pisky work, for one morning at least. But Loveday was very anxious to
see if the bad piskies had done anything further when they found all
the straw had been taken away from them. Aaron was excited, too, but he
was more sleepy, and they were both just the least bit cross as they
clambered up the slippery path.

“I’m jolly glad I am not a real pisky,” he said, “to have to do this
every night. I reckon folks would have to do their work theirselves if
’twas left to me.”

Loveday did not answer. She felt very much the same, but she was not
going to say so.

They did not sit down this time to enjoy the view, but munched their
crusts as they walked. There was neither a lovely sunrise, nor a dense
sea-fog--it was just an ordinary dull, grey morning; and Loveday no
longer felt that for the future she should always rise with the sun,
and try to make every one else do the same. Every now and then her
thoughts _would_ turn to her snug, comfortable little bed, though she
tried hard to fix them on something else, for she felt that if she
thought of it too much she should turn and run back to it, and creep in
and lay her weary body out at full length between the cosy blankets,
and her sleepy head on the pillow, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep--all
the day through, if she could.

Everything was quiet as usual when they reached the gate. By this time
they had found out how to walk over the pebbled path without making
much noise.

“We will try to make that place look very nice to-day,” said Loveday;
“I’ve brought a knife and a pair of scissors with me, and we’ll cut off
all the great big straggly things, and the dead things, and ‘heave ’em
to cliff’ as we did the straw.”

“That’s one of mother’s best knives,” said Aaron anxiously; “you’d best
not use that. You should have brought the ’taty knife, the little dumpy
one she uses for peeling ’taties.”

“Well, I can’t go back now to change it,” said Loveday decidedly. “I
_must_ use this one. One knife isn’t very much, and they are meant to
cut things with; we shan’t hurt it--besides, Bessie has got more like
it.”

“Oh, well, do as you please,” said Aaron crossly; “only there’ll be a
fine row if it’s spoilt. Knives”--with that superior, knowing air of
his which always nettled Loveday--“costs a brave bit of money.”

“Of course I know that,” she snapped irritably. “I didn’t think they
grew. Well, I’ll use the scissors, and you can use your hands; unless
you brought something yourself to cut with.”

But by this time they had reached the walled-in garden, and in their
excitement to see if anything had happened they forgot their crossness.
Along the path they ran till they reached the bed, then stood still and
looked at each other with wide eyes. The bed was covered again with
straw--fresh, new straw--and over it and across it in all directions
was fine cord, stretched to pegs which had been stuck firmly in the
ground.

The two felt quite frightened! Whoever had done it had spared no
trouble in making all secure this time, but had carried out their work
deliberately and beautifully. The children felt perfectly helpless.

“It is just to _spite_ us,” whispered Loveday furiously.

But Aaron did not speak; he was really puzzled and alarmed. Thoughts
were working so fast in his brain, too, that he could not catch one
and put it into words. Loveday grew annoyed and half frightened by his
silence.

“What do you think it is? Who do you think did it? Aaron, speak! Are
you frightened? Do you think it is something that will hurt us?”

But in answer to all her eager questions, Aaron only said at last:

“I dunno; I don’t like the looks on it.”

Loveday was really rather alarmed, but to find Aaron even more so, and
without a word to encourage her, made her very cross again.

“_I_ don’t like the looks of all that cord,” she said, “and I’m going
to cut it all, just to let them see that _I_ am not afraid of them.
_I_ am not a coward.”

Poor Aaron! It was a little hard on him, for he really had begun to
feel a horrible dread that it might not, after all, have been piskies’
mischief that they were undoing, but some real person’s careful work,
and he was just beginning to say so when they heard quick footsteps
coming along the path towards them, and, looking up, saw an elderly,
grey-haired man with a very white and angry face and a pair of eyes
with a look in them which filled Loveday’s little heart with alarm.

“It’s Mr. Winter!” gasped Aaron.

That news did not increase Loveday’s alarm; it rather lessened it,
in fact, for, in the first place, she wanted very much to see this
mysterious person, and, in the second place, she had always a feeling
that sad people were never _very_ angry about anything: they were
too gentle, and had so much else to think about. But Mr. Winter soon
undeceived her.

“Who are you?” he cried hotly, “and what are you doing in my garden,
you young ragamuffins? What are you doing, I say? Is it you who have
been tampering with my beds day after day, and ruining all my seeds?”

“Please, sir,” began Aaron, stammering and stuttering, and frightened
nearly out of his wits--“please, sir, we didn’t mean no ’arm; we didn’t
know----”

“What didn’t you know? You knew you had no right in here. You will
know it now, at any rate, for you will just wait here until I get a
policeman; then perhaps you will remember another time.”

“A policeman!”

Loveday was filled with horror, and could scarcely believe her ears.
A policeman to be sent for, for her, Miss Loveday Carlyon! Oh, it
couldn’t be true! He couldn’t mean it! It was a mistake. But oh, if
only father were here, or mother, to explain!

They were far away, though, and Mr. Winter was here, talking more and
more angrily, and saying, “Come with me, come with me, and I’ll see
that you are safe till the police come!”

“I must explain to him myself,” thought Loveday. “Aaron isn’t any
good”--which was quite true, for all Aaron’s thoughts were taken up
in trying not to cry. He was much too scared to speak. Loveday went a
little nearer the angry old man.

“Please, Mr. Winter,” she said, but very tremblingly, “we only wanted
to do something kind for you. We weren’t stealing, or doing any harm.
We never touched a flower--we didn’t see one to touch, but we wouldn’t
have if we had.”

Mr. Winter stopped in his angry words as soon as she began to speak.
Expecting, as he had, to hear the speech of one of the village
children, Loveday’s pretty, refined voice gave him a shock of surprise.
He looked at her more keenly, and with some curiosity.

“Kind!” he cried; “what do you mean? You wanted to be kind? Why should
you? And why should you come into my garden to play pranks, and then
call them kindnesses? Why are you up and out wandering about the
country at this hour of the morning? Whose children are you?”

“This is Aaron Lobb; his father and mother live in your cottage under
the cliff; and I am Loveday Carlyon, Dr. Carlyon’s daughter. I’ve come
from Trelint to stay with Bessie for--for my health, and one day Aaron
and I came up here with a message, and your garden looked _so_ untidy,
I wished the piskies would come and make it nice for you. And then we
thought we would pretend to be piskies and get up very, very early, and
make it all nice and tidy----”

“Excuse me,” snapped the old gentleman, “my garden was not untidy.”

“Oh, but please it was, dreadfully--I mean it looked so to me,” urged
Loveday, struggling with her sense of truth and her desire to be
polite. “I mean that outside part in front of the windows where the
blinds are all drawn down. That was what we meant to tidy. I thought if
you saw it looking tidy, and flowers growing, you wouldn’t feel so sad.
It was that untidy part that made us think of it.”

“Yes, sir,” chimed in Aaron nervously; “please, sir, we didn’t never
mean to come in here, but--but the other was so hard, and then we
looked in here, and saw all the straw littered about--it reg’lar’y
covered that bed.”

“I know it did,” said Mr. Winter. “I had had that bed sown with seeds
of a rare and delicate kind, and covered them most carefully with straw
to protect them, and--and you have destroyed them all by uncovering
them.”

“Oh, I _am_ sorry!” cried Loveday, drawing nearer to him. “But why
didn’t you put something there to say so? If we had only known, we
would have put on more stuff to keep them warm.”

“But when you invaded my garden the second time, and saw that the bed
had been covered again with straw, couldn’t you understand that it was
done for a purpose?”

“We thought the piskies had done it,” said Loveday, as though that
excused everything.

“You thought _what_!” cried the gentleman. “You thought the piskies--!
Oh dear, dear! To think that such ignorance should exist in this
twentieth century! It is disgraceful!” Then, turning to the children:
“Come with me while I decide what can be done.”

Loveday followed with less fear than she would have felt a few moments
earlier. For one reason, Mr. Winter did not seem quite so angry as he
had at first; for another, he had not spoken again of policemen; and,
for a third reason, she was rather anxious to see what the house looked
like inside.

But here she was disappointed, for Mr. Winter led them so quickly
through the bare stone hall that they saw very little of the house, and
then he showed them into a small, bare room, with a window high up out
of their reach, and there left them. And as he went they heard him turn
the key on them, at which they looked at each other in horror, while
he walked slowly away to his own sitting-room to think; for what to do
with the pair now he had them was more than he could tell. He wanted to
frighten them, yet he had no thought now of sending for a policeman. In
fact, he would have liked to have sent them both away with a warning,
only he thought it was better that they should be kept a little longer
as a punishment.

Meanwhile, Bessie, having got up very early to be ready for her husband
on his return from his fishing, went to call Aaron rather earlier
than usual, and was shocked to find his bed empty and himself flown.
Astonished and troubled, she went to Loveday’s room, and, opening the
door gently, peeped in. When she found Loveday’s room empty too, and
the windows wide open, she grew really alarmed. She listened, but
there was no sound but the voice of the sea and the gulls. The silence
frightened her. Where could they be? She ran to the front door, and
looked out over the sands. No; no sign of them there. She searched the
house and called and called, but no answer came. What could she do
next? Find them she must, but where? Her eye fell on the sparkling sea.

“Oh, not out there!” she cried, turning sick with fear.

Far out she saw the boats coming in, but they could not help her or
tell her anything. She turned away, unable to bear the sight; and as
she did so her eye fell on the path up the cliff. A ray of comfort
crept into her heart. Something seemed to tell her that that path would
lead her to them. Of course, there was risk there, too, but not such
risk.

Without waiting to put on hat or shawl, poor Bessie hurried up the
steep path. She forced herself to look over the rugged sides every
now and then, though it made her feel ill to do so, until she came at
last to that spot where the children had thrown the straw over the day
before. But when she came to that she turned away, faint and full of
horror.

“I can’t look,” she groaned. “I can’t! I can’t! I’ll get a fence put
round there if I have to do it myself. The least little slip, and
nothing could save one, whether man, woman, child, or poor dumb animal.”

When she reached the top of the hill she met a new perplexity. Where
could she look now? Which way could she go?--to Mr. Winter’s, or right
on over the downs which stretched away to the very edge of the cliff?

“Well,” she thought, “they wouldn’t go to Mr. Winter’s if they could
help it;” and she turned and walked in the other direction, on and on,
past the Fairy Ring, and all the time she gazed about her, but never a
speck of anything living or moving could she see, and she turned away
in despair. Coming slowly back, she once more reached Mr. Winter’s gate.

“I’ve a good mind to go in and ask Mrs. Tucker if she has caught sight
or sound of them,” she sighed. “It isn’t likely, but when one’s in
despair-- Oh, my Aaron! my Aaron and Miss Loveday! What will the master
and missus say?”

And poor Bessie had begun to cry with fright and misery, when, just as
she had turned in at Mr. Winter’s gate, who should she see coming down
the pebbly path towards her but two dejected little figures, walking
hand in hand.

At the first sight of her they paused, hardly recognising her, and half
afraid--then, with a cry, they rushed into her arms, and for a few
minutes all three wept together.

“What ’ave ’ee been doing--where ’ave ’ee been?” cried Bessie, the
first to check her tears. “Oh, my dear life, the fright you’ve gived
me, Aaron! I ought to lace your jacket for you; it’s what you deserves.
But I haven’t the heart to. Oh, my dear life! the fright I’ve had, and
how glad I am to see ’ee both. I don’t know what I haven’t thought
might have happened to ’ee. But what have you been doing, you naughty,
naughty children, to leave your beds and get out of window like that?
I’ll never be able to trust ’ee any more, and I’ll have bars put to
them windows before I sleep to-night!”

By this time some of their alarm had passed off, but the children
sobbed on, partly from hunger, partly from weariness and shock, but a
great deal from the sense of their naughtiness to poor Bessie, who had
been so good and kind to them; and it was not until they had sobbed
out all their story that they could control themselves and feel at all
comforted.

Bessie did not scold them any more, but she looked very grave.

“Well,” she said, “there is no knowing what Mr. Winter will do, for
he is a funny kind of gentleman, and you were very naughty children;
and what you have to do now is to make up your minds to bear what he
does do. A pretty fine tale I’ve got to write to your ma and pa, Miss
Loveday,” she added, “and a nice bit of news you’ve got for father
when he comes home”--turning to Aaron--“and he been out all night too,
working hard to get you food and clothes!”

Aaron began to weep again, touched to the heart by remorse.

“I’ll write to daddy myself and tell him,” sighed Loveday penitently.
“Perhaps it won’t frighten him so much if he hears it from me first.
I’ll write directly after breakfast, and then I’ll go and post it. May
I, Bessie?”

“Yes, miss, if you’ll promise not to run away again,” said Bessie
severely. “You see, I don’t feel sure now about trusting either of you.
I think I shall have to hobble you both, like they do the goats, or
tether you.”

At which Loveday felt more humbled than ever she had in her life
before.




CHAPTER XIII

PRISCILLA PAYS A CALL AND TAKES A JOURNEY


By this time Priscilla was so much better she was able to go for short
walks and, best of all, for drives with her father. She loved these
better than anything, for she had her father all to herself, and it was
delightful to sit propped up with cushions, and with no strap around
her to keep her from falling out, and so to drive Betsy up the hills,
for she could manage that with her one hand, while her father read to
her.

One day they drove to Lady Carey’s house. Priscilla did not like that
very well, for she had not seen Lady Carey since that dreadful day when
she had caught her sweeping the drawing-room. But Lady Carey was not
very well, and Dr. Carlyon had been sent for, and as she had been very
kind to Geoffrey and Priscilla while they were ill, and had sent them
fruit and flowers and picture-papers, he thought Priscilla should go
herself and thank her for her kindness, if Lady Carey was well enough
to see her.

Lady Carey was well enough, and after the doctor had paid his visit,
he came out to the carriage for Priscilla, who had been sitting there
feeling very nervous all the time, and half hoping, though she would
not have liked any one to know it, that Lady Carey would decide that
she felt too unwell and too tired to see visitors.

She looked as grave and nervous as she felt when her father lifted her
down from the dog-cart, and straightened her hat and her frock, and led
her through the big, cool, flower-scented hall to the pretty, shady
room where Lady Carey sat in her big chair by the open window looking
out on the flower-garden.

“Priscilla has come to thank you for all your kindness to her, and
to say good-bye before going to Porthcallis,” said the doctor; and
Priscilla walked sedately up to the pretty invalid, shook hands, and,
after only a second’s nervous hesitation, put up her face to kiss her.

Lady Carey returned the kiss very heartily, and pulling a little low
chair close to her, told Priscilla to sit on it.

Priscilla did so gladly; it was such a charming little chair, with gilt
legs and back and a cushioned seat of a delicate grey silk with roses
worked all over it.

“Oh, how pretty--” she began, then stopped abruptly as she remembered
Nurse’s directions that it is not polite to remark on what one sees,
and at the same moment she noticed that her father had gone away and
left her alone with her hostess.

But before she could feel alarmed by this, Lady Carey had begun to talk
to her, and to ask her questions about her arm, and her illness, and
her coming visit to the seaside, and then about Loveday; and very soon
Priscilla was telling her all about Loveday and her bucket, and Aaron,
and Miss Potts, and all sorts of things; and Lady Carey told Priscilla
of how she used to stay by the sea when she was a little girl, and all
kinds of other interesting tales; and Priscilla felt that she could
stay there and listen to her and talk to her for ever so long. But
presently Dr. Carlyon put his head in again.

“Lady Carey, I think your visitor has stayed long enough for one day.
Will you tell her to go, please?”

Lady Carey laughed. “I shall tell you to go for just five minutes
longer,” she said brightly. “I have something I especially want to say
to Priscilla before we part.”

“I suppose I must, then,” said the doctor, laughing, as he turned away.

“Will you ring that bell for me, Priscilla, please?” said Lady Carey,
as soon as he had gone.

Priscilla went over and pulled very, very carefully at a pretty silk
bell-pull which hung beside the fireplace. It was a very gentle pull,
but it answered all right, for in a moment a very neat and smiling maid
appeared.

“Sanders, will you go to my room and bring me down that parcel you
placed on the table at the foot of my bed this morning.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Sanders; and away she went, and in a moment or so was
back again with a big paper parcel in her hand, which she handed to
Lady Carey.

Priscilla looked on with interest, wondering what it all meant.

“I have something here,” said Lady Carey, untying the string, “that I
have been making for you and your little sister; and I want to give you
yours now, and I will ask you to take Loveday’s to her, for I think
you may both find them useful by the sea;” and, unwrapping the paper,
Lady Carey took out and shook out a pretty warm cloak, big enough to
cover Priscilla to the hem of her skirts. It was made of a soft blue
cloth, bound with ribbon, and it had a hood lined with silk of the same
shade.

Priscilla was so delighted and surprised when she saw it, and heard
that it was for her, that she could hardly speak.

“Now try it on,” said Lady Carey; and Priscilla was soon enveloped
in the cloak, with the hood drawn over her curls, and her grey eyes
and pretty pale face looked up at her kind friend so gratefully that
Lady Carey drew her to her, and held her very close as she kissed her
affectionately.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” cried Priscilla, finding her
voice at last. “I love my cloak; I think it is perfectly beautiful!”

Then Lady Carey undid the other parcel, and took out a red one made in
the same way.

“This is for Loveday. Do you think she will like it?”

Priscilla was again almost speechless with delight.

“She will _love_ hers too,” she cried at last rapturously. “And she
looks so pretty in red. Thank you, Lady Carey, very much indeed. Oh, I
want Loveday to see them both, now, at once, and I want mother to see,
and father. O father,” she cried, running to him as he came into the
room again, “_do_ look at what Lady Carey has made for Loveday and me!”

Of how she got out of the house, of her good-byes, and her drive home
Priscilla remembered nothing. Of course, she wore her blue cloak--it
would have been too much to expect her not to--and when she got home
she flew into the house to tell her mother her news. But the next thing
that clearly stood out in Priscilla’s mind when she thought it all over
afterwards was her father’s coming into the room with a letter in his
hand. Mrs. Carlyon was sitting with Loveday’s red cloak in her hands
(Priscilla always remembered that); her own she was still wearing, and
was feeling it rather warm, when her father drove all other thoughts
out of her head by saying: “Just listen, dear, to this extraordinary
letter that I have had from Loveday,” and he read it aloud.

  “MY DEAR DADDY,--Plese will you come at once, I am in great truble I
  wassent nawty reely but mr. winter sais we are and he was going to
  get a polisman, but he diden, he let us go home whil he thot what he
  shud do to punnish us I hop he won’t send us to prissen, Bessie lost
  us and cride and took us home. Do come quik, I am very sory, we were
  piskies. How is prissy.--Your loving

                                                “LOVEDAY. Do come quik.”

As she listened to this letter Priscilla thought she should have
fainted with fright. Policemen! and prison! and Loveday perhaps with
handcuffs on, and oh, so frightened! She looked with a white face and
terrified eyes at her mother, who was still holding the red cloak, and,
somehow, the sight of that made it all seem more dreadful.

“O father, what can we do?” she cried piteously. “Loveday shan’t go to
prison; she mustn’t! She can’t have been naughty enough for that.”

But to her surprise her father, instead of being frightened and angry,
looked almost as though he were amused about something--at least, until
he glanced at Priscilla; but when he saw her white face, he grew grave
at once.

“Don’t be foolish, darling,” he said, drawing her to him. “You surely
aren’t really frightened. It cannot be anything very serious, or
Bessie would have written too, or telegraphed; she wouldn’t have left
it to Loveday to have told us all about a serious matter. I expect
the truth of it is that Miss Loveday and Master Aaron have been up to
some mischief, and some one--a Mr. Winter I think she calls him--has
frightened them, or tried to, by talking about prison and police.”

Mrs. Carlyon, who had been lost in thought for some minutes, suddenly
looked up.

“Mr. Winter!” she exclaimed. “Why, that is the name of that poor
gentleman whose only son was drowned there, before his father’s eyes,
some few years ago. He has shut himself up there ever since. Don’t you
remember, dear?”

“Of course; yes, I remember now,” said the doctor, nodding his head
thoughtfully. “A curious, morose old man. I met him once. I think it is
his cottage that the Lobbs live in.”

All this time he was sitting with one arm round Priscilla, who stood
very silent, with her head laid against her father’s shoulder, her face
very white and troubled still. “It is all right, dear, I am sure,” he
said, suddenly noticing how ill she looked; “don’t you worry about it.”

“But, father, do you think it is all right?” asked Priscilla, in a
trembling voice.

“Oh yes,” said Dr. Carlyon cheerfully. “I haven’t a doubt. I think
I will go and send a telegram to Bessie to say I will just run down
to-morrow for the day,” he added; “then I shall know for certain what
is amiss. And, what do you say? Shall I take Prissy with me, instead of
waiting till next week? The change will be good for her, I think, and,
at any rate, she will have Loveday under her eye, and know that the
policeman has not got her locked up in a cell. While I am there I can
look about for rooms, too, for the rest of us. Don’t you think those
are very nice plans, little woman?”--turning to Priscilla. “You would
like to go down with me to-morrow, wouldn’t you, and help look for
rooms for mother and Geoffrey?”

“Oh yes,” cried Priscilla, throwing one arm about her father’s neck and
kissing him, “please, father;” and her face, though still very pale,
grew brighter and less alarmed-looking.

“But--do you think it will be all right to wait till then? They won’t
take away Loveday, or----”

“My dear, they couldn’t, and wouldn’t. Of course not; I expect we shall
have a letter by the next post from Bessie. Now I will go to the office
and send this telegram, and tell Bessie to be sure and let me know if I
must come before to-morrow.” And away he went.

After all this Priscilla felt too tired and languid to do anything,
even to sort out the toys she wanted to take with her, but when
presently a telegram came back from Bessie to say, “All well, nothing
serious,” she felt very much happier, and grew quite excited at the
thought that she was going to see Loveday to-morrow, and to take her
her red cloak, and she lay back very contentedly in her chair and
watched her mother and Nurse looking over her clothes to see what they
should pack, and then arranging them in her box.

By the post next morning came Bessie’s letter telling them all about
Loveday’s and Aaron’s escapade. When Priscilla heard it she felt very
frightened again, for it seemed such a dreadful thing that they had
done. But still her father did not seem very much concerned, and,
seeing him so cheerful, Priscilla tried to be so too, though in her
secret heart she had a great dread of the morose, mysterious Mr.
Winter, and did not feel at all sure that, after all, he would not
fulfil his threat, and send for a policeman.

However, on a bright sunny morning, with a lot to do, with farewell
visits to pay to Miss Potts, Mrs. Tickell, and many others, a journey
to the sea before one, two new cloaks, hidden away where they could
easily be got at, a little sister, and the sea, and a holiday at the
end of the journey, no one could feel quite, quite miserable. And with
the sun shining and the breeze blowing, and Betsy trotting quickly
along between the flower-decked hedges, and Geoffrey beside one making
fun, it did not seem possible that anything very, very dreadful _could_
happen, and Priscilla’s spirits rose enormously.

She felt quite sorry for Hocking, who was to be left behind.

“O Hocking,” she sighed, “don’t you wish you were going to the seaside
too?”

But Hocking did not seem at all perturbed at being left behind. “What’s
the use of wishing, miss?” he said slowly; “if wishes were ’orses
beggars would ride.”

Priscilla looked at him for a moment, puzzled, then looked away to try
and think out his meaning. “I don’t see any sense in that,” she said at
last, having thought the matter over for some time. “If they were on
horseback they couldn’t beg, and they wouldn’t be beggars.”

“Ezzackly, miss,” said Hocking stolidly, as though that was what he had
been arguing, and did not open his lips again.

At the station Priscilla kissed Betsy, shook hands with Hocking, and
then went with Geoffrey on to the platform, while her father took the
tickets. She wished now that Geoffrey was coming too, and she told him
so.

“I wish I was,” said Geoffrey; “but, you see, I’ve got to wait and
bring mother and Nurse. If I hadn’t, I’d have gone to old Winter and
jolly well told him what I thought of him for frightening a child as
small as Loveday. I call it cowardly, and--and he _ought_ to be told of
it too.”

Priscilla gasped at the mere thought of Geoffrey’s daring. But after
she had said good-bye to him, and he had driven off homewards with
Hocking, and she and her father had settled down comfortably in a
carriage to themselves, her thoughts flew again to what he had said
about Mr. Winter, and by-and-by a thought came into her mind, which
grew and grew, until before long it had become a very firm resolution.

If Geoffrey thought it right to go to Mr. Winter and speak for Loveday,
it was right for her to do so. She could not speak as severely as
Geoffrey said he should, and perhaps it might be better not to; but she
could say something, and she made up her mind to go on the very first
opportunity--that is, if her father did not do so--and ask to see Mr.
Winter, and then apologise for what Loveday had done, and ask him to
forgive her.

So occupied was she with this plan that she never once spoke all the
way to Porthcallis, and her father at last looked quite anxiously over
his paper at her, so serious and grave was her face, and her eyes so
very troubled.

“You aren’t feeling homesick, are you?” he asked gently.

Priscilla looked up with a start and then a smile.

“No, father,” she said brightly, “’cause mother and Geoffrey will come
soon, and you too.”

And after that she tried to laugh and talk a good deal, for she did not
want any one to guess her secret.

“Have you Loveday’s red cloak with you?”

“Yes; it is in this basket, so that I can get at it quite easily. I
think she will be able to wear it back from the station, don’t you,
father? It seems rather cold, I think.”

“Very cold!” laughed Dr. Carlyon, pretending to shiver as the
sea-breeze swept into the compartment. “Now, then, look out for the
first glimpse of the sea, and now for the station, and----”

“And Loveday!” almost shrieked Priscilla. “She is here. O father,
father, she is here! She isn’t a prisoner yet!” and, by Priscilla’s
rapturous relief, Dr. Carlyon realised how great, in spite of all, had
been her secret fears.




CHAPTER XIV

PRISCILLA PAYS ANOTHER CALL


Loveday was not a prisoner, but she was somewhat subdued and ashamed
of herself, and Priscilla, who felt very, very sorry for her, and
forgot all about her naughtiness and the injury she had done, was quite
troubled to see how grave her father looked, and how sternly he spoke
to her.

“Well,” he said, “this is a nice thing! Here am I, called away from
my patients and everything, to come and help a little girl who cannot
be trusted to go a-visiting by herself but she must go and behave
disgracefully, and bring shame on us all! What have you to say for
yourself?”

“Nothing, daddy,” cried the disgraced one, flinging herself into his
arms and burying her face on his shoulder, while the spade and the
bucket with “Thomas” on it went clattering to the ground.

Fortunately, Dr. Carlyon had not put his harrowing questions until
they had passed the green and the houses, and were in the little hotel
where they were to have dinner before going to interview Bessie. But
his stern silence all the way had impressed Loveday more than any words
could have done, and when at last he spoke, her poor little troubled
heart could bear no more.

“O daddy,” she sobbed, “I only meaned to be very kind, and to make him
happy ’cause he’d lost his son and was very unhappy, and we got up in
the morning when we were so sleepy and tired we didn’t want to get up
a bit, but it was to help him, and we wanted to make it all look nice,
and we thought ’twas the piskies put the old straw there, but it was
Mr. Winter did it--and how could we know? _Of course_ we shouldn’t
have done it if we had! And then Mr. Winter came out and caught us.
Oh, ’twas ever so early, and he was so angry, he looked--oh, he looked
as if he would eat us! and he said such dreadful things, and I told
him all about it. I ’splained everything, but he doesn’t believe there
are any fairies, and then he took us indoors and locked us in a room
while he thought what he’d do with us, and I was ’fraid he’d heave us
to cliff like we heaved the straw, but Aaron said he’d know better
than do that ’cause he’d be hanged for it. Aaron talked a lot when we
were locked in, and Mr. Winter wasn’t there, but he was nearly crying
before. I don’t think much of Aaron, and I’ll--I’ll never like him
any more! He said he reckoned Mr. Winter would turn them out of their
cottage for what we had done, and ’twould be all my fault, and I told
him he was a very bad, mean boy to say such things, and if he didn’t
take care all that he ate would turn acid like it did to the wicked
uncle in the Babes of the Wood, but all he said was that he wouldn’t
mind that, if he could only get something to eat.”

“Well,” said her father, with a patient sigh, but holding his erring
little daughter very close, “you seem to have had a pleasant ten
minutes in your prison--but get on with your story.”

“Ten minutes!” cried Loveday, drawing back in her surprise to look up
at his face; “ten hours more likely, daddy!”

“Oh! was it nearly night then when you came out?”

“Well, no--but it was _quite_ breakfast-time when we got home.”

“I see--it seemed like ten hours.”

“Oh yes!” sighed Loveday, with a very sober shake of her curly head;
“and it was such a dirty, horrid little room. I don’t think Mrs. Tucker
can be a very clean person,” she added, in a grave confidential tone.

“Never mind Mrs. Tucker--get on with your story. I don’t suppose you
were very clean either at that time in the morning!”

“Well--you see we always washed when we got up the second time. We were
in too great a hurry the first time.”

“What did Mr. Winter say when he came back and let you out?” asked Dr.
Carlyon.

“He said he hadn’t been able to think of a punishment yet, so we might
go home then, and he would send for us later. Aaron said that was
because it was going to be something dreadful, and I wanted to run away
to some place where I could never be caught; but Aaron said it would be
mean to go and leave him to face it all. Would it, father?”

“Very. I am extremely glad you did not do that.”

“But, daddy, s’posing he sends me away from you! What shall I do?” and
the blue eyes filled with tears again.

And at the sight of them, and the thought of such a dreadful
possibility, Priscilla, who had been standing near with a very, very
serious face, listening to all the harrowing story, almost wept too,
and told her precious secret in her desire to comfort her little sister.

“Oh, dear little Loveday, don’t cry any more! You won’t be sent away--I
am sure you won’t. And just look here at the lovely present I’ve got
for you! Father, put her down, that she may try it on.”

For the moment, at any rate, all Loveday’s woes vanished, and Priscilla
forgot her cares, too, in the excitement and happiness at the pleasure
in store for Loveday. And then the basket was opened, and out came the
parcel, and the red cloak was unfolded, and displayed before Loveday’s
dazzled eyes; and her delight was as great as even Priscilla had hoped
it would be.

“For me!” she cried--“_me_! For my very own! O Prissy, how lovely! What
a dear! Let me put it on quick. Do you think it will suit me?” And in
another moment the pretty red cloak was round her, and the hood drawn
over her tumbled curls, while Prissy, like a little mother, knelt to
button it round her, managing as best she could with her one hand.

“Do I look _very_ pretty in it?” asked Loveday, appealing, quite
unembarrassed, to her father.

“Well, not so _very_ plain,” said her father, pretending to study her
very critically. “I have seen you look worse,” though in his heart he
thought he had seldom seen anything so charming as the little flushed
face, the eyes still bright with unshed tears, surrounded by its tangle
of curls and the red hood.

“Has Prissie got one?” she asked, quite undisturbed by her father’s
remark.

“Yes--mine is blue,” cried Priscilla, dragging hers out of the basket
too. “I like mine best for me, but I like the red best for you. Look,
isn’t mine lovely!” and she put the cloak on over her little print
frock.

Then came a long comparison and examination of both. “I think I like
my buttons best,” said Loveday, at the end of the inspection, “but you
have a clasp on yours. Never mind--perhaps I shall get a clasp too some
day.”

Then followed the long story of Priscilla’s call on Lady Carey, and of
Lady Carey’s sending for the parcel, and every detail of Priscilla’s
visit, even to the chair and the bell-pull; and it took so long to tell
that the servant came in and laid the cloth and placed the dinner on
the table before it was all done.

Loveday was so delighted with her cloak she could not be persuaded to
take it off even for dinner, so she wore it throughout the meal, and
all the way to Bessie’s too, “because,” as she said, “it matched her
bucket so beautifully, and would give Bessie such a surprise.”

And Bessie really was surprised to see her little lady come back
enveloped in a long, warm red cloak, with the hood drawn snugly over
her head, especially as that same little lady had in the morning
protested that it was too hot to bear even a cotton coat over her
cotton frock.

Then Priscilla having been welcomed and kissed and crooned over by
Bessie, and the cloaks having been admired, and Aaron introduced and
allowed to run away and hide, Priscilla and Loveday were sent out to
amuse themselves on the beach, while Dr. Carlyon talked over all the
dreadful doings of his younger daughter and Bessie’s son.

It was then that Priscilla breathed to Loveday her great plan of going
up to call on Mr. Winter. At first she had not intended to let Loveday
into the secret, but she soon saw how impossible it would be to get
away from her, that there would be a hue and cry if she were missed,
and that matters then would be worse than ever. So Loveday was told,
and her help proved to be of the greatest use.

“Of course,” said Prissy, “if father is going up there this afternoon,
I needn’t go.”

But they soon learnt, to their surprise, that Dr. Carlyon had no
intention of going, for, after his talk with Bessie, he came out to
them on the beach to say that Bessie had given him the addresses of
some lodgings, and he was now going to see if either of them would suit.

“I think you had better not come with me, dear,” he said to Prissy.
“You look tired.”

Priscilla agreed, not because she did not want to go, but because she
wanted to do something else.

“But--but,” she began nervously, “father, aren’t you going to see Mr.
Winter?”

“No, dear,” he said quite cheerfully, and not at all as though he were
alarmed. “I think, from what Bessie tells me, that I had better wait
until I hear something more from Mr. Winter himself before I take any
steps in the matter. Loveday, would you like to come with me or to stay
with Priscilla? I expect you would rather stay.”

“No, I’d rather go with you, I think,” said Loveday, her mind full of
Priscilla’s plan.

“Well, Priscilla will have plenty of you, and I haven’t seen you for a
long time,” said Dr. Carlyon, “so come along. Prissy, you had better
rest till we come back. Now, then, Loveday, are you ready?”

And off they went. Priscilla felt rather deceitful as they left her,
and she felt even more so when Bessie showed her to the little room
that she and Loveday were now to share.

“Now, missie,” she said, “you shall have a nice sleep; the house will
be very quiet. Aaron is going to Melland with his father, and I shall
be sitting outside the front door with my sewing. If you want me, you
have only to call.”

Priscilla thanked her, and thought, with thankfulness, that things
seemed to be arranging themselves on purpose for her. She felt rather
troubled about it, but she really had taken fresh alarm at her father’s
remark that he should wait until he heard more. “Why will they put it
off?” she thought anxiously; “they will leave it until too late, and
the policeman will come before they have done anything, and then it
will be no good!” It seemed to her very, very foolish and rash, and she
felt quite glad that Loveday was in her father’s care, for there she
would be safer than anywhere.

She went into the bedroom and shut the door, and lay down for a little
while, until, at last, she heard Aaron and his father start, and
Bessie settle down under the verandah to her sewing. When Priscilla had
heard her singing softly to herself for some time, she felt that at
last it would be safe to start. To cover her light cotton frock, which
would have made her very conspicuous as she mounted the cliff, she
put on her blue cloak, hood and all; but she carried her hat beneath
it, for she thought it would be more fitting to be wearing a hat when
making a first call, and one of such importance too.

Loveday had told her exactly how to go, and Bessie having been unable
to get the bars put up at the window yet, Priscilla slipped out easily
enough, and was soon hurrying up the cliff. At first all her fear
was of being seen, and stopped, but later, when she neared the top,
other fears seized her. Mr. Winter seemed suddenly to grow almost too
formidable to face, and when she reached the gate she hesitated a
moment, really too nervous to go a step farther.

But she thought of Loveday, who would be all the time thinking of her,
and counting on her interference; and she thought of all the dreadful
things that might happen, making herself picture the very worst, to
help to get her courage up. And then she quickly opened the gate,
walked gravely up to the door, and knocked before she had time to give
way to her fears again.

[Illustration: “PRISCILLA SLIPPED OUT EASILY.”]




CHAPTER XV

MR. WINTER


The housekeeper, grim and silent as usual, opened the door. Her look
and manner alone were sufficient to alarm Priscilla, and send her home
with errand undone.

“Is--is Mr. Winter at home?” she asked.

“Yes, he is,” answered the woman. She was so absorbed in staring
at Priscilla, and studying every detail of her face and figure and
clothing, one could have been excused for thinking she had not really
taken in what was said to her. Under her rude stare and forbidding
manner, a faint pink flush came into Priscilla’s pale cheeks.

“Is Mr. Winter at home, please?” repeated Priscilla; adding, as firmly
as she could, “I want to see him.”

“Then you can’t,” answered the housekeeper rudely; “he don’t see
visitors. What’s your name?”

“I think Mr. Winter would see me,” said Priscilla eagerly. The fear
that after all she might not be able to reach him with her appeal made
her desperate. She had never contemplated failure of that kind. “My
name is Carlyon, but I don’t suppose Mr. Winter would know it. I want
very much indeed to see him, though. It is most important.”

“What for? What can a little girl like you want to be troubling a
gentleman like Mr. Winter for?” she asked roughly. “If you’re come
begging for clubs or charities or things, I can tell you at once, it
isn’t any good, and you can run away as quick as you come.”

“But I am not begging,” said Priscilla emphatically--“not for money.”

“Well, we haven’t got any flowers or fruit to give away. I can tell ’ee
that too. So you may as well run ’long home to where you come from.”

“You shouldn’t speak like that,” said Priscilla indignantly; “you
shouldn’t be rude.” She was hurt and insulted, and she felt that this
woman would prevent her seeing her master if she possibly could. “I
spoke quite civilly to you, and I’ve come on important business, and I
am sure Mr. Winter would see me if he knew I wanted him. But it doesn’t
matter; I will write to him,” and she turned away with great dignity,
but only just in time to prevent the woman from seeing the tears that
would well up in her eyes.

Very angry indeed, Mrs. Tucker shut the door with a bang, while
Priscilla walked down the gravel path with great dignity, her head
held high, but with, oh! such an aching heart, such despair and
disappointment; and then, suddenly, a gentleman appeared at her side
and was speaking to her quite kindly.

“What is the matter?” he asked, not ungently; “you are in trouble? Can
I do anything for you?”

Just for a second he had thought this must be his little culprit of
a day or two since, but when he looked again he saw that the strange
visitor was taller and older, and her face, though like that other
one, was paler, and thinner, and graver.

For a moment Priscilla could not control the quivering of her lips, or
choke back the tears which had forced their way up.

“I wanted to see Mr. Winter,” she gasped. “I want very much to see him,
and the woman was so rude, she wouldn’t even ask him if he would see
me.”

“I know; I heard her,” said the stranger sternly. “But it is all right.
I am Mr. Winter. What do you want with me?”

And then when she was face to face with him, with the morose recluse,
the mysterious tyrant who was going to do all sorts of unkind things to
Loveday and Aaron, Priscilla could not for a moment think of anything
she wanted to say.

“Please,” she stammered, wondering where she could begin, “I have come
to--to--to ask you to forgive my little sister, Loveday Carlyon. I know
she was mischievous, but she didn’t mean to be--she didn’t, really; she
wanted to be kind to you, because they said--because--oh, because she
thought you were sad and lonely, and she--and she--oh! you won’t have
her punished _very_ severely, will you, or sent to gaol? Oh, _please_,
don’t! She will never, never do such a thing again, I know!”

“Um! She won’t, won’t she?”

“Oh no!” said Priscilla eagerly; “never! She really did think it was
the piskies that put the straw there to annoy you----”

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Winter sharply. Then he added, more gently: “The
idea of any one believing such rubbish in these days!”

“Loveday does,” said Priscilla earnestly--“she does, really--and--and
I want her to go on believing. _I_ did once, and it was, oh! _ever_ so
much nicer than now when I know it isn’t any use to. I wish I’d never
been told there aren’t any fairies, really. When you think there are,
it seems as if such lots of beautiful things may happen, you never know
what, and--and it always seems as if they were going to.”

“Ay, ay, little girl,” said Mr. Winter, looking down at her
thoughtfully, “it is very sad when folk don’t leave us fairies, or--or
anything else to believe in. But they won’t.”

Priscilla did not know what reply to make to this, so she made none.
After a pause Mr. Winter looked at her again.

“You look pale and tired,” he said, trying still to speak coldly, but
not succeeding very well. “You don’t look as strong as that mischievous
sister of yours.”

“I have been ill,” said Priscilla, and she told him of the accident
with the swing, and throwing back her cloak to show him her arm still
in its sling, she saw, and for the first time remembered, her hat. For
a moment a hot blush dyed her face, and then she burst into a hearty
peal of laughter. At the sound of it Mr. Winter started, then grew even
paler than he had been. No sound of childish laughter had been heard
in that place since the day his boy left him to start on his fatal
expedition.

“I meant to have put it on,” she explained, “before I reached your
gate; I thought it was more--more right to have on a hat when one paid
a call. I only put on my cloak because I was afraid my dress would show
as I came up the cliff, and I was afraid some one would see me and stop
me.”

Mr. Winter had recovered himself by this time, and seeing that she
could but badly manage with one hand to slip back the hood and put on
her hat, he actually helped her. At the touch of the soft curls, at
the frank, grateful glance of the childish eyes, a new sense of life
and happiness ran through his chilled veins, a new peace came to the
heart that had for so long waged a bitter, resentful war against God,
himself, and his fellow-creatures.

When the hat was satisfactorily adjusted, a sudden silence fell upon
them; his mind and heart were teeming with thoughts and sensations that
to Priscilla would have been incomprehensible. Priscilla was wondering
what she could say and do next. He had not said he would forgive
Loveday, and she did not like to leave without his promise, and oh! she
was feeling so tired she did not know how to begin her pleading again.
She _must_, though. She felt that; and then she would go away, and when
she got out of sight she would rest a little before she went all down
that steep path again.

“Mr. Winter--you haven’t said yet, but will you forgive Loveday,
please?” she asked, suddenly growing shy and nervous again. But it was
the weariness, the weakness of her voice that struck her hearer most.
He looked sharply at her, and her pale, wan little face sent a pang to
his heart, a pang he could not understand.

“Yes, of course, child, of course,” he said hastily. “I am not an ogre.
I was only pretending to be, to frighten the two young scamps a little.
I did not intend to punish them any further. You may run home and tell
your sister what I say. But,” he added abruptly, “you are not fit to
walk all the way back; you have walked too far already, and I have kept
you standing all this time. Come in and rest for a few minutes, and
have a glass of milk. You will get home in half the time after it.”

But Priscilla hesitated. She was shy of penetrating that gloomy house,
with only this stranger, of whom she still felt some awe, and that
dreadful woman, whom she frankly disliked.

“You would rather not,” he said, quick to notice her hesitation; “don’t
be afraid to speak out, child. I quite understand.”

But Priscilla noticed the hurt tone in his voice, and was touched. “I
would like to very much, thank you,” she said weakly. “I am dreadfully
tired,” she added, almost as though the words escaped her against her
will. The next moment she was crossing the bare stone hall into which
Loveday had peered so enviously, and was admitted to Mr. Winter’s own
private sitting-room, which no one but himself had entered for years.

Of all the women in this wide world, Mr. Winter’s housekeeper was at
that moment the most astounded, and what to make of things, and of the
change in her master, she did not know. But in her heart she very much
wished that she had treated this little visitor more civilly when she
had first come knocking at the door.

Priscilla sat in a big arm-chair, and drank milk and ate biscuits,
and Mr. Winter sat in another and stared out of window, his mind
absorbed in thoughts. They wandered far and wide, yet when, presently,
Priscilla’s voice broke the silence, both his and hers must have been
hovering near the same subject.

“Miss Potts,” she broke out suddenly--“she is a friend of mine at
home,” she explained--“Miss Potts couldn’t bear the sight of the
sea either; it had swallowed up _all her_ family, all but her and
her mother.” Mr. Winter’s eyelids quivered, and his face contracted
sharply, but Priscilla could not see his face, or she might have paused
in what she was saying. As it was, though, she continued: “But _she_
left it. She didn’t draw her blinds because she couldn’t bear to look
at it, but she went right away, and--and she told me she had been
_ever_ so much happier ever since.”

A deep silence followed her remarks, a silence which presently
frightened Priscilla, and as it continued, she slipped off her chair
and crept to the door. She felt that she had offended past forgiveness.
“I ought not to have mentioned the sea, or the blinds, or let him
know I knew anything about the story,” she thought with a sudden,
overwhelming sense of her own want of tact. But when she reached the
door she paused; she could not, after all his kindness, go and leave
him without a word. So she crept back again very gently and very
slowly, until she reached his side.

“I--I am dreadfully sorry,” she gasped. “I did not mean to hurt you.”
Then, as still he did not speak, in real distress she laid her hand on
his thin hand as it rested on his knee, while the other supported his
head. “Mr. Winter,” she said, in a frightened voice, her lip quivering,
“I am so sorry; I did not mean to hurt you, only I--I felt so sorry for
you, and--”

“You haven’t hurt me, child,” he said at last, speaking very slowly, in
a curious still voice; “it is I who have hurt myself all these years.
I was very glad to hear about your friend. I am grateful to you for
telling me about her. She was a wise and brave woman. Now,” rousing
himself and rising, “if you are rested you would like to go home, I
expect. I will see you to the gate.”

At the gate he took the little hand she held out. “You will come and
see me again, I hope?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” said Priscilla warmly; “I will come quite soon, if you would
like me to.”

As she walked away she turned every now and then to wave her hand to
the solitary-looking old man who stood at his gate, and watched her
until she had disappeared from his sight.

“Did you see him? What did he say? Was he very cross?” whispered
Loveday anxiously, rushing to find her the moment they returned.

“He--oh, he asked me to come again,” said Priscilla absently.

“But didn’t he say anything about me and Aaron?”--with a surprised and
disappointed look.

“Oh yes. He told me to say he forgave you, and he wouldn’t think
anything more about it.”

“Well,” cried Loveday, in a voice full of reproach, “you might have
told me at once, when you knew how anxious I was. I have been thinking
about it all the time I’ve been out. You don’t look a bit as though
you had good news for me; I thought you would have been--oh, _ever_ so
glad that I wasn’t to be sent to prison;” and Loveday’s lip actually
quivered with disappointment at Priscilla’s seeming indifference.

“I am!” cried Priscilla, rousing herself; “I am so glad; and, oh dear,
there are such lots of things to be glad about. I don’t know which to
think about first.”




CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH A GREAT MANY THINGS HAPPEN


Four such happy, beautiful weeks followed. Mrs. Carlyon and Geoffrey
came down to Porthcallis within a few days, and they all settled into
the comfortable rooms Dr. Carlyon had taken for them. Loveday was very
sorry to leave Bessie and Aaron and the dear little bedroom; but they
went every day to “Bessie’s beach,” as they called it, for it was their
favourite play-place. Each day they thought they knew all the rocks and
pools by heart, yet every time they came again they found fresh ones.

Very often, too, Mrs. Carlyon engaged John Lobb to row them along the
coast in his best boat, and they would land at some of the nice little
bays and coves and have their dinner or tea, and light a fire and boil
the kettle.

[Illustration: “THEY WOULD LIGHT A FIRE AND BOIL THE KETTLE.”]

The red bucket “Thomas” grew to look quite shabby with the hard
usage it had, and so many of its letters got knocked off that it was
difficult at last to know what the name was meant to be. Priscilla
had chosen a green bucket with “Mary” on it, as she could not get one
with her first name. The colour did not go very well with her blue
cloak, but she did not want to use them together very often, and when
she did she solved the difficulty by carrying the bucket underneath
the cloak. Sometimes they went for picnics on the Downs on the top
of the cliff, and one day when they were up there Priscilla saw Mr.
Winter, and, running up to him, brought him over and introduced him to
her mother. He seemed rather shy at first and not very happy, but the
next time they met him he came up to them of his own accord and talked
to them for a while, and as the days went on they even induced him to
join them at their picnic teas, and when he had done so once or twice
he seemed really to enjoy himself, and would ramble about with them for
quite a long time, saying little, but evidently interested in all they
said and did.

Priscilla was his most constant companion. Geoffrey, at first
particularly, reminded him too painfully of his own dead boy, and he
himself reminded Loveday of the mortifying occasion when he had locked
her up, a prisoner. As time went on they often talked of the escapade,
and laughed about it, but Loveday could not at first see any joke in
it, or quite throw off her awe of her captor, and preferred to race and
tear about with Geoffrey, sharing his dangers and adventures.

Often when Priscilla was tired she would find her new old friend by her
side, and with his arm to lean on they would saunter on slowly together
and talk and talk. Such long conversations they had, though it was
generally Priscilla who was the talker, but that was because he asked
her so many questions about their home, and their games, and their
lessons, and their doings, and he seemed so interested in every little
thing that Priscilla told him that she thought perhaps it helped him to
feel more cheerful and forget his own troubles. So she chattered on to
him very willingly.

She did not have all the talk to herself, though, for sometimes he
would tell her stories of the time when he was a boy, and all sorts of
other interesting tales; but her mother had told her so seriously never
to ask him questions, or speak of anything that would be likely to
arouse sad memories, that poor Priscilla was not quite certain what she
might say, and what she must not, and really felt easier when she was
telling him of their own little doings.

One day she told him all about Lady Carey and the cloaks, and he
seemed very interested. “Is that the pretty cloak I first saw you in?”
he asked; and when Priscilla said, “Yes, it was,” he said, “A very
sensible clever woman she must be to make such a charming garment. I
have never seen any I like so much.”

Another day she told him about Miss Potts, and what an interesting
person she was, and how she was an “only”; so she, Priscilla, tried to
be a sort of sister to her, and went quite often to see her.

“I should like to know Miss Potts,” he said, and Priscilla knew that he
was thinking of the story she had blurted out to him so thoughtlessly
that first day.

“I wish you could,” she said eagerly. “Oh, I wish you would come to
Trelint and see her, and see our house, and Betsy and--everything. I am
sure you would like it. Miss Potts loves Trelint. She told me she felt
at home there at once, and ever so happy, and she has never wanted to
go anywhere else since. I am sure you would love Trelint if you came.”

“I feel sure I should,” said Mr. Winter. “Perhaps I will come some day.
I dare say I shall; in fact, I have been thinking about it a good deal.”

“Oh, have you? How lovely!” cried Priscilla, really pleased. “It won’t
seem so hard to leave Porthcallis now.”

For the last days had come, and the end of the visit was very near.
Already there had been talk of trains, and some farewell visits had
been paid, and they all felt very sad, for they loved the little place.

“Of course it isn’t as fine in some ways as Porthcallis,” she remarked,
after a short pause, beginning to wonder if she had painted home too
glowingly, and so prepared a disappointment for a new-comer to the
place. “There is no”--she had nearly added “sea there,” but checked
herself just in time--“nothing, I mean, _very famous_, like ruins, and
tombs, and castles, and things, but it is very--very homey.”

“I am not particularly fond of sight-seeing,” said Mr. Winter, “and I
would prefer a home to a ruin. It seems to me I have been living in the
latter too long already,” he added, half to himself. “Now let us go and
find your mother. I want to ask her to bring you all to tea with me at
my house to-morrow. I hope you will not mind giving up a part of your
last whole day. Would you like to come, little one?”

For a moment Priscilla was speechless. Even she, child as she was,
understood a little what this invitation must have cost him. But she
quickly recovered herself and remembered her manners.

“Oh, I would love to!” she cried warmly; “we all would, I know.” But
she added in her own sedate little way: “Won’t we be a great trouble to
you?”

Mr. Winter smiled.

“Not a trouble, child.”

They soon overtook Mrs. Carlyon, who gladly agreed to the plan, and
thanked Mr. Winter warmly, and soon after that they parted.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was with very varied feelings that they all climbed the cliff the
next day to Mr. Winter’s home, and walked slowly up the pebbled path.
Geoffrey was full of curiosity and interest; Loveday was a little shy
of again entering her prison, but interested too; Mrs. Carlyon was very
thankful, and in her heart very glad, for it seemed to her that it
might be the beginning of brighter, happier days for the poor, lonely,
sad old man; Priscilla, too, dimly felt the same thing, and she wanted,
oh, so much! that he should be less sad.

Mrs. Tucker let them in, glum as usual, but more civil in manner.

“Will you please to walk inside and sit down,” she said, showing them
into a little bare room where there was no sign of any preparations for
tea, no flowers, nor even chairs enough for them all. “The master will
be here in a moment.”

And in less than a moment he came in.

As soon as their eyes fell on him standing in the doorway, two at
least of them--Priscilla and her mother--noticed a change in him; they
could not have said whether they saw or felt it, or in what the change
lay, and when he came forward to shake hands he seemed only a little
quieter, a little more sad than usual, and somewhat more absent-minded.
He welcomed them very cordially, but after the first greetings a
silence fell, then:

“Will you come this way?” he said, rising and moving towards the
door. He spoke in a nervous, strained manner. “I have had tea laid
in the--the drawing-room. It is a room I do not often use.” As they
rose to follow him he laid his hand on Priscilla’s shoulder. “May Miss
Priscilla and I lead the way?” he asked.

It was a curiously silent little procession that straggled from the
one room to the other--Mrs. Carlyon full of surmise as to what was to
follow, Geoffrey and Loveday too absorbed in interest at being in the
house of mystery, as they had always considered it, to notice anything
unusual.

But as soon as the drawing-room door was opened, Mrs. Carlyon began
to understand. “This is one of the closed rooms, and for us he has at
last opened it,” she thought; and once more a deep pang of tender pity
filled her heart.

Mr. Winter walked in without looking or speaking; Priscilla walked
beside him, her hand held fast in his, and even through all her
wonderment she noticed how his hand trembled. Straight across the room
they went, and right up to the windows where the blinds were still fast
drawn. “I want you to be the first to draw these up,” he said gently,
and Priscilla, a little nervously, but very gladly, pulled the cords,
and let in the beautiful air and sunlight.

For a moment they stood there, Priscilla gazing with wide eyes at
the glorious view which spread before her, glorious, yet almost
awe-inspiring; Mr. Winter looking down at her, as though he could not
yet force himself to let his eyes rest on what he had so long shut out.
He turned away at last, and leaving her standing there alone, went
over to Mrs. Carlyon, who was lingering in the doorway trying to keep
back her tears.

“Forgive an old man’s sentiment,” he said to her, with his gentle sad
smile; “as she was the first to let sunshine into my life again, I
wanted her to be the first to let it into my house too.”

“I know, I understand,” said Mrs. Carlyon softly; “you are very brave.”

Then Loveday, with a cry of joy, relieved the tension of the moment,
and every one felt grateful to the unconscious little maiden.

“O mummy!” she cried excitedly, “mummy! do look! Here is a dear dinky
little cup with ‘Loveday’ on it. Then they do paint ‘Loveday’ on things
sometimes, and that woman told a story when she said they didn’t.”

Mr. Winter turned to her with a pleased smile.

“That was my Grannie’s cup,” he said, “made on purpose for her, and
that was her name; and as you are the only other Loveday I have ever
known, I am going to ask you to use it, and after that to accept it
from me as a little keepsake from the ogre to the pisky.”

At which Loveday gasped and squealed again more delightedly than ever,
and from that moment forgave him for her humiliation, even going so far
as to admit him as one of her very best friends.

It was a very pleasant tea that, and one none of them ever forgot,
though it was not entirely joyous, owing to the many memories called
up, and the thought of the parting on the morrow, which was hanging
over them all.

But when the next morning came and the actual parting, the spirits
of most of them were not as low as they had thought they would be,
for they were going home, and that is always pleasant, and there was
the journey and the drive. And what an exciting, bustling time it
was, packing up the last things and getting off. The children had so
many more treasures too--buckets and spades, shells and pebbles and
seaweeds; and Loveday had her tea-cup too, which had to be packed with
special care in Mrs. Carlyon’s best hat-box. And then, when at last
they reached the wind-swept station, and Priscilla in her blue cloak,
and Loveday in her red one, were standing on the platform, who should
appear but Mr. Winter himself to see them off!

“I thought I might be of some use in helping you,” he said kindly. “Is
there anything I can do? Tell me, please, if there is.”

“Oh, will you please hold this?” gasped Loveday eagerly, pointing to
the hat-box which she and Priscilla were guarding. “My cup is in it,
and I am so afraid some one will run into us and joggle it.”

Mr. Winter took the box at once into his care, and then turned to
help their mother, and when the train came in he found them a nice
comfortable compartment all to themselves, and having first placed the
precious hat-box in safety, and arranged a dozen other things in the
rack, he then helped in Priscilla and Loveday and Mrs. Carlyon.

“Good-bye,” he said, when at last the whistle blew to warn them they
were about to start. “Good-bye, good-bye, children, and I hope you will
write to me sometimes, and tell me what you are doing, and how Miss
Potts gets on, for I shall be very lonely without you,” and he stepped
quietly out of the carriage as though half ashamed of having said so
much; and the last thing they saw as they rolled away was Mr. Winter
standing alone on the little bare platform, the wind blowing his white
hair about as he waved his hat to them.

“I don’t know how we should ever have got off without Mr. Winter,” said
Nurse, who had taken a great liking to him.

“Nor I; nor how we shall get on at home without him,” said Mrs. Carlyon
gravely; “I think he will have to come to Trelint.”

“So do I,” sighed Priscilla. “I am sure he will be very lonely without
us. I must write to him very often, to cheer him up.”

And Priscilla did. Sometimes it was difficult. She felt disinclined,
or she thought there was nothing to say, or she could not spell the
words she wanted to use, but she very seldom failed altogether, and she
would not have done so at all, had she known how her funny little badly
written letters were prized by her old friend.

One day there came a letter from Mr. Winter which sent Priscilla
dancing joyously through the house.

“My dear Scylla,” it said--Mr. Winter had called her “Scylla,” because
he said that as the little blue flower was the first to push its way
through the hard frosty ground, so she had been the first to push her
way through his frosty nature:--

  “MY DEAR SCYLLA,--Your last letter interested me much, and what you
  told me of the old house next to Miss Potts made me so anxious to see
  it that I have determined to come over to Trelint for a few days to
  have a look at it; so be sure that no one else takes it first. The
  front of it so close to the street that I can see your house from
  it, sounds very enticing, and the old-fashioned garden at the back
  sounds as if it was made on purpose for me; and if I like it as much
  as I think I shall from what you say, I should not be surprised if,
  like Miss Potts herself, I felt so at home in Trelint I should never
  want to leave it again, and then you would be relieved of the task of
  writing to your dull old friend,

                                                        MATTHEW WINTER.”

A very few days later, Mr. Winter did come to Trelint, and Mrs. Carlyon
and the children went with him to inspect the comfortable, roomy old
house which stood beside Miss Potts’ little old-fashioned house and
shop, without humbling hers or losing its own dignity. And everything
in the house seemed right; and the garden was beautiful, large, and
old, and well-filled with every kind of flower that one loves best, and
many kinds of fruits too.

“I _must_ have this,” said Mr. Winter, and he spoke so eagerly and
gaily it was a treat to hear him. “I can just imagine you children
racing about here and playing all sorts of games. You will let them
come, won’t you, Mrs. Carlyon?”

“Oh, indeed, yes,” she cried laughingly; “they will come--the question
is, will they go? You must see to it that they do, Mr. Winter. I am
sure they will always be wanting to be here.”

“It really is a dear old house, and the garden is lovely,” she said
afterwards to her husband; “but I believe he would have taken it if
it had been the most wretched and inconvenient place imaginable, he
seemed so determined to come here.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“And it all came,” said Loveday solemnly, when they were talking over
the wonderful event amongst themselves--“it all came about through my
being a pisky in his garden.”

“Or a prisoner in his house,” jeered Geoffrey, to tease her.

“It really began further back than either,” said Priscilla, “for if
it hadn’t been for our accident Loveday wouldn’t have been sent to
Porthcallis, and so----”

“So really you have me to thank for it all,” cried Geoffrey, “for I put
up the swing.”

“And if you had put it up properly it wouldn’t have broken, and there
might not have been any accident,” agreed Priscilla. “But----”

“No,” said Loveday, who had been cogitating quietly for some time,
“it was through me, after all; for if Mrs. Wall hadn’t been so long
changing her frock, and kept me waiting so, I should have been in
the swing too” (excitedly); “and then I should have fallen out, and
p’r’aps been killed, and then I wouldn’t have gone to Porthcallis, and
you” (growing more and more eager) “wouldn’t any of you have known Mr.
Winter, so you see ’twas through me, after all.” And to her immense
surprise she was for once allowed to have the last word.


Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64258 ***