CHAPTER XVII.TO THE RESCUE.
An hour later a wildly anxious and disconsolate little figure might have been seen knocking at Polly’s door. No answer from within. A moment of suspense on the part of the little figure, followed by another and louder knock; then the small, nervous fingers turned the handle of the door, and Firefly pushed her head in and peered anxiously round.
Oh, dear! oh, dear! No Polly was in the room. And why did the great eight-day clock in the hall strike twelve? Why, on this morning of all mornings, should time go on wings? Firefly had great faith in Polly’s powers of helping her. But the moments were too precious to waste them in trying to find her. She had another search to make, and she must set out at once. No, not quite at once. She clasped her hands to her beating little heart as an idea came to her on which she might act. A delicious and yet most sorrowful idea, which would fill her with the keenest pain, and yet give her the very sweetest consolation. She would go and get a kiss from her father before she set out on the search, which might be a failure. Very swiftly she turned, flew down the long gallery which led to Dr. Maybright’s room, and went in.
Dr. Strong had paid his visit and gone away. Firefly’s heart gave a bound of delight, for her father was alone. He was lying supported high in bed with pillows. His almost sightless eyes were not bandaged, they were simply closed; his hands, with their long, sensitive, purposeful fingers lay on the white sheets in a restful attitude. Already the acute hearing of the blind had come to him, and as Firefly glided up to the bedside, he turned his head quickly. Her two small hands went with a kind of bound into one of his. His fingers closed over them.
“This is my Fly,” said the Doctor; “a very excited and feverish Fly, too. How these small fingers flutter! What is it, my darling?”
“A kiss, father,” said Fly, “a greathugof a kiss! please, please. I want it so awfully badly.”
“Climb up on the bed, and put your arms round me. Is that all right? My dear little one, you are not well.”
“I’m quite well, now, while I’m loving you. Oh! aren’t you just the darlingest of all darling fathers? There, another kiss; and another! Now I’m better.”
She glided off the bed, pressed two long, last fervent embraces on the Doctor’s white hand, and rushed out of the room.
“I’m lots stronger now,” she said to herself. “Whateverhappens, I’ll have those kisses to hold on to and remember; but nothing shall happen, for I’m going to find David; he is sure to put things right for me.”
Meanwhile, Polly’s absence from her room was accounted for, also the fact of Fly finding her father alone. It was seldom that this dearly loved and favorite father, physician, and friend, was left to indulge in solitude. It was the privilege of all privileges to sit by him, read to him, and listen to his talk; and a girl, generally two girls, occupied the coveted chairs by his bedside. On this morning, however, poor Helen was detained, first by Aunt Maria, and then by necessary housekeeping cares; and Polly and Flower were deeply engrossed over a matter of considerable importance.
When Polly had replied in the negative to Helen’s question, she lingered for a moment in the passage outside the morning-room, then started off to find Nurse and little Pearl. Flower, however, waited with a feeling of curiosity, or perhaps something more, to hear what the others would say. She was witness, therefore, through the open door, of Firefly’s curious mixture of avowal and denial, and when Mrs. Cameron went away to consult the doctor who attended Dr. Maybright, she coolly waited in an adjoining room, and when the good woman returned, once more placed herself within earshot. No Maybright would dream of eavesdropping, but Flower’s upbringing had been decidedly lax with regard to this and other matters.
In full possession, therefore, of the facts of the catastrophe which was to overpower poor little Fly and injure Dr. Maybright, she rushed off to find Polly. Polly was feeling intensely happy, playing with and fondling her sweet little baby sister, when Flower, pale and excited, rushed into the room. Nurse, who had not yet forgiven Flower, turned her back upon the young lady, and hummed audibly. Flower, however, was far too much absorbed to heed her.
“Listen, Polly! you have got to come with me at once. Give baby back to Nurse. You must come with me directly.”
“If it is anything more about Scorpion, I refuse to stir,” answered Polly. “If there is a creature in this world whom I absolutely loathe, it’s that detestable little animal!”
“You don’t hate him more than I do,” said Flower. “My news is about him. Still, you must come, for it also means Firefly and your father. They’ll both get into awful trouble—I know they will—if we don’t save them.”
“What?” said Polly; “what? Take baby, please, Nurse. Now, what is it, Flower?” pulling her outside the nursery door. “Whathasthat horrid Scorpion to do with Fly and father?”
“Only this: Fly has confessed that she knows what has become of him, but she’s a dear little brick and won’t tell. She says she’s a Maybright, and they don’t tell lies. Three cheers for the Maybrights, if they are all like Fly, say I!Well, the little love won’t tell, and Mrs. Cameron is fit to dance, and what does she do but gets leave from Dr. Strong to see your father, and she’s going to drag Fly before him at three o’clock to-day, and make a fine story of what happened. She holds it over Fly that your father will be made very ill again. Very likely he will, ifwedon’t prevent it.”
“It’s horrible!” said Polly; “buthowcan we prevent it, Flower?”
“Oh, easily enough.Youmust guard your father’s room. Let no one in under any pretense whatever until I have found David.”
“What do you mean by finding David? What can David have to say to it?”
“Oh! has he not? Poor Fly! David has got her into his toils. David is at the bottom of all this, I am convinced. I guessed it the moment I saw him go up so boldly to Mrs. Cameron and pretend to be sorry about the dog.Hesorry about Scorpion! He hates him more than any of us.”
“But then—I don’t understand; if that is so, David told a deliberate lie, Flower.”
Flower colored.
“We have not been brought up like the Maybrights,” she said. “Oh, yes,wecould tell a lie; we were not brought up to be particular about good things, or to avoid bad things. We were brought up—well, just anyhow.”
Polly stole up to Flower and kissed her.
“I am glad you have come to learn of my father,” she said. “Now do tell me what we are to do for poor, poor Fly. Do you think David is guilty, and that he has got Fly to promise not to tell?”
“Yes, that is what I think. David must be found, and got to confess, and so release Fly of her promise before three o’clock. David is a dreadful boy to find when he takes it into his head to hide on purpose; but I must look for him, and in the meantime will you guard your father, Polly?”
“As a dragon,” said Polly. “You may trust me about that at least. I will go to his room at once to make all things safe, for there is really no trusting Aunt Maria when she has a scheme of vengeance with regard tothat dogin her head. Good-by, Flower; I’m off to father.”
Polly turned away, and Flower ran quickly downstairs. She knew she had not a moment to lose, for David, as she expressed it, was a very difficult boy to find when he took it into his head to hide himself.
Flower had not been on the moor since that dreadful day when she had taken the baby away. So much had happened since then, so many dreadful things had come to pass, that she shuddered at the bare thought of the great and desolate moorland. Nevertheless she guessed that David would hide there, and without a moment’s hesitation turned her steps in the direction of Peg-Top Moor. She had walked for nearly half an hour, and had reached rather a broad extent oftable-land, when she saw—their little figures plainly visible against the sky—two children, nearly a quarter of a mile away, eagerly talking together. There was not the least doubt as to their identity; the children—a boy and a girl—were David and Fly. Fly was holding David’s arm, and gesticulating and talking eagerly; David’s head was turned away. Flower quickened her steps almost into a run. If only she could reach the two before they parted; above all things, if she could reach them before David saw her!
Alas and alas! she was too late for this. David suddenly pushed his little companion a couple of feet away from him, and to all appearance vanished into the solid ground.
Fly, crying bitterly, began to run to meet Flower. Flower held out her arms as the little girl approached.
“What is it, Firefly? Tell me, has David confessed?”
“Oh, what do you know about it, Flower? Oh, what am I to do, what am I to do?”
“You are to go quietly home,” said Flower, speaking in a voice of authority. “You are to go quietly home, and leave this matter in my hands. I know all about it, and just what David has done. He has bound you by a sort of oath, you poor little thing—you dear, brave little thing! Never mind, Fly; you leave David to me. I expect I shall find him now—that is, if you don’t keep me too long talking. Go home, and leave matters to me.”
“But Flower—Flower, you do comfort me a little; but Flower, it will soon be three o’clock, and then—and then—oh, dear father! Oh, it is so dreadful!”
“No, you silly mite; it is not dreadful at all. Polly is in charge of the Doctor. She is sitting with him now, and the door is locked, and the key is in Polly’s pocket, and she has promised me not to open that door to any one—no, Fly, not to a hundred of your Aunt Marias—until I bring David home.”
Fly’s face underwent a transformation. Her big eyes looked full up into Flower’s. A smile flitted across her quivering lips. With a sudden, passionate gesture, she stooped down and kissed Flower’s fingers, then ran obediently back in the direction of Sleepy Hollow.
“She is a perfect little darling!” said Flower to herself. “If Master David does not rue it for making her suffer, my name is not Flower Dalrymple.”
She ran on swiftly. She was always very quick and light in her movements. Soon she came to the place where David had to all appearance disappeared. She did not stay there long. She ran on to where the bracken grew thick and long, then suddenly lay flat down on the ground, and pressed her ear close to Mother Earth. What she heard did not satisfy her. She rose again, repeating the same process several times. Suddenly her eyes brightened; she raised her head, and listened attentively, then she whistled a long peculiar note. There was no answer, but Flower’s face retained its watchful, intent expression. She laid her head down once more close to the ground, and began to speak, “David, David, I know you are there; there is no use in your hiding. Come here, I want you, I, Flower. I will give you two minutes, David; if you don’t come then I’ll keep the threat I made when you made me angry with you at Ballarat.”
A perfect silence followed Flower’s words. She still lay flat on the ground. One of the minutes flew by.
“I’ll keep my word, David!” she said again. “You know me; you know what my threat means. Three-quarters of a minute more, half a minute, then I’ll go home, and I’ll do what I said I would do when you made me angry at Ballarat.”
Again there was silence, but this time quickly broken; a boy’s black head appeared above the bracken, a little brown hand was held out, and David, without troubling himself to move a hair’s breadth, looked full into his sister’s face.
“I don’t want to lose you, Flower!” he said. “You are the only person in all the world I care two-pence about. Now what’s the row?”
“You’re a cowardly boy, David, and I’m ashamed of you; come with me this minute.”
CHAPTER XVIII.OH, FIE! POLLY.
While these events were taking place, and the children in their various ways were preparing check-mate for Aunt Maria Cameron, that good lady was having a by no means unexciting experience of her own. After her housekeeping cares were over, after she had interviewed Mrs. Power, and made Alice thoroughly uncomfortable; after, in short, meaning it all the while for the best, she had succeeded in jarring the whole household machinery to the utmost, it was her custom morning after morning to retire with Scorpion into the seldom used drawing-room, and there, seated comfortably in an old-fashioned arm-chair, with her feet well supported on a large cushion, and the dog on her lap, to devote herself to worsted work. Not crewel work, not church embroidery, not anything which would admit of the use of modern art colors, but genuine, old-fashioned worsted work. Mrs. Cameron delighted in the flaring scarlets, pinks, greens, blues, and mauves of thirty years ago. She admired with all her soul the hard, staring flowers which these colors produced. They looked, she said, substantial and durable. Theylookedlike artificial flowers; nobody could mistake them for the real article, which was occasionally known to be the case with that flimsy, in her opinion, ugly, art embroidery. No, no, Mrs. Cameron would not be smitten by the art craze. “Let naturebenature!” she would say, “and worsted work be worsted work, and don’t let us try to clash the poor thingsinto one, as that wretched art-school is always endeavoring to do.” So each morning Mrs. Cameron plied her worsted needle, and Scorpion slumbered peacefully on her knee. She liked to sit with her back to the light, so that it should fall comfortably on her work, and her own eyes be protected from an extensive and very beautiful view of the south moor.
Mrs. Cameron hated the moor; it gave her, as she expressed it, “the creeps,” and on all occasions she avoided looking at it. On this morning, as usual, she took out her large roll of worsted work, and prepared to ground a huge, impossible arum lily. Her thoughts, however, were not, as usual, with her work. Her cheeks were flushed, and her whole face expressed annoyance and anxiety.
“How I miss even his dear little playful bite!” she said aloud, a big tear falling on her empty lap. “Ah, my Scorpion! why did I love you, but to lose you? How true are the poet’s words:
‘I never loved a dear gazelle.’
Well, I must say it, I seldom came across more wicked, heartless children than the Maybrights and Daisy Rymple. David is really the only one of the bunch worth rearing. Ah, my poor sister! your removal has doubtless spared you many sorrows, for what could you expect of the future of such a family as yours? Now, what is that? This moor is enough to keep anybody’s nerves in a state of tension. Whatisthat awful sound approaching the house?“
The noise in question was the unmistakable one of a woman’s loud sobbing. It came nearer and nearer, gaining in fullness and volume as it approached the house.
Mrs. Cameron was always intensely curious. She threw open the drawing-room window; and as the sufferer approached, effectually stopped her progress with her own stout person.
“Now, my dear, good creature, what is this most unpleasant sound? Don’t you know that it is frightfully bad-mannered to cry in that loud, unrestrained fashion? Pray restrain yourself. You are quite childish. You cannot know what real affliction means. Now, if you had lost a—a—— If, my poor woman, you had lost a dear little dog!”
“Is it a dog?” gasped Mrs. Ricketts, for it was she. “Is it a dog? Oh, my word! Much you know about ’flictions and such-like! Let me go to the house, ma‘am. It isn’t to you as I has come to tell my tale.”
“Then let me inform you that you are going to tell it to no one else. Here I stand, and here I remain until you choose to explain to me the reason of your loud bursts of uncontrollable grief. During the illness of its master I am the mistress here, and either you speak to me or you go home.”
Mrs. Ricketts had by this time so far restrained her sobsas to be able to take a long and very acute glance at the lady in question. Doubtless she was face to face with the formidable Mrs. Cameron, that terrible personage who had got her Maggie dismissed, and who had locked up poor darling Miss Polly for days in her bedroom.
There was no one, perhaps, in the world whom Mrs. Ricketts more cordially disliked than this good lady, but all the same, it was now her policy to propitiate her. She smoothed, therefore, her brow, dried her eyes, and, with a profound courtesy, began her tale.
“Ef you please, ma‘am, it’s this way; it’s my character that’s at stake. I always was, and always will be, honest of the honest. ’Ard I works, ma‘am, and the bread of poverty I eats, but honest I am, and honest I brings up those fatherless lambs, my children.”
Mrs. Cameron waved one of her fat hands impressively.
“Pardon me, my good woman. I am really not interested in your family. Pray come to the point, and then go home.”
“To the p’int, ma‘am? Oh, yes, I’ll come to the p’int. This is the p’int ef you please, ma‘am,” and she suddenly thrust, almost into Mrs. Cameron’s dazzled face, the splendid gleam and glitter of a large unset diamond. “This is the p’int, ma‘am; this is what’s to take my character away, and the bread out of the mouths of my innocent children.”
Mrs. Cameron never considered herself a worldly woman. She was undoubtedly a very Christian-minded, charitable, good woman, but all the same, she loved fine houses and big dinners and rich apparel, and above all things she adored jewelry. Flowers—that is, natural flowers—had never yet drawn a smile out of her. She had never pined for them or valued them, but jewels, ah! they were worth possessing. She quite gasped now, as she realized the value of the gem which Mrs. Ricketts so unceremoniously thrust under her nose.
“A diamond! Good gracious! How did you come by it? A most valuable diamond of extraordinary size. Give it to me this moment, my good dear creature! and come into the drawing-room. You can step in by this open window. We won’t be disturbed in here. I suppose you were weeping in that loud and violent manner at the thought of the grief of the person who had lost this treasure?”
“No, ma‘am, I were a sobbing at the grief of her what’adit. Oh, my word! And the young lady said for sure as I’d get nine-and-fourpence halfpenny for it. No, ma‘am, I won’t go into the ’ouse, thank you. Oh, dear! oh, dear! the young lady did set store by it, and said for certain I’d get my nine-and-fourpence halfpenny back, but when I took the stone to the shop to-day, and asked the baker to give me some bread and let this go partly to pay the account, he stared at me and said as I wasn’t honest, and he thrust it back in my hand. Oh, dearie me! oh, dearie me! the foreign young lady shouldn’t have done it!”
“Iam very sure that you’re honest, my good creature! Now, do tell me about this stone. How did you come by it?”
“It was the young lady, ma‘am; the young lady from Australia.”
“Daisy Rymple, do you mean?”
“Miss Flower she called herself, ma‘am. She come to me in sore plight late one evening, when we was all in bed, and ‘Mrs. Ricketts,’ said she, dear lamb, ‘will you help me to go away to Mrs. Cameron, to Bath? I want the money to go third class to Bath. Can you let me have nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny, Mrs. Ricketts? and I’ll give you this for the money!’ and she flashed that bit of a glittering stone right up into my eyes. My word, I thought as I was blinded by it. ‘You’ll get most like two pounds for it, Mrs. Ricketts,’ she said, ‘for my father told me it was worth a sight of money.’ That’s how I come by it, ma‘am, and that’s the way I was treated about it to-day.”
Mrs. Cameron slowly drew out her purse.
“I will give you two sovereigns for the stone!” she said. “There, take them and go home, and say nothing about the money. It will be the worse for you if you do; now go quickly home.”
Mrs. Ricketts’ broad face was one glow of delight. She dropped another courtesy, and tried to articulate some words of thanks, but Mrs. Cameron had already disappeared into the drawing-room, where she now sat, holding the diamond in the palm of her open hand.
She knew enough about precious stones to guess at something of its probable value. The idea of in this way possessing herself of Flower’s diamond never for a moment entered her head, but she was worldly-minded enough to wish that it could be her own, and she could not help owning to a feeling of satisfaction, even to a sense of compensation for the loss of Scorpion, while she held the beautiful glittering thing in her open palm.
Even Flower rose in her estimation when she found that she had possessed a gem so brilliant. A girl who could have such a treasure and so lightly part with it was undoubtedly a simpleton—but she was a simpleton who ought to be guarded and prized—the sort of young innocent who should be surrounded by protecting friends. Mrs. Cameron felt her interest in Flower growing and growing. Suppose she offered to release the Doctor of this wearisome burden. Suppose she undertook the care of Flower and her diamond herself.
No sooner did this thought occur to Mrs. Cameron, than she resolved to act upon it. Of course the Doctor would be delighted to part with Flower. She would see him on the subject at once.
She went slowly upstairs and knocked with a calm, steady hand at the door of the dressing-room which opened into Dr. Maybright’s apartment. No sound or reply of any kind camefrom within. She listened for a moment, then knocked again, then tried to turn the handle of the door. It resisted her pressure, being locked from within.
Mrs. Cameron raised her voice. She was not a person who liked to be opposed, and that locked door, joined to that most exasperating silence, became more than trying. Surely the Doctor was not deaf as well as blind. Surely he must hear her loud demands, even though a dressing-room stood between his room and the suppliant without.
And surely the Doctor would have heard, for a more polite man never lived, were it not for that all mischievous and irrepressible Polly. But she, being left in charge, had set her sharp brains to work, and had devised a plan to outwit Mrs. Cameron. The dressing-room in question contained a double baize door. This door was seldom or never used, but it came in very conveniently now, for the furtherance of Polly’s plan. When it was shut, and thick curtains also drawn across, and when, in addition, the door leading into Dr. Maybright’s room was securely fastened and curtained off, Polly felt sure that she and her father might pass their morning in delicious quietude. Not hearing Mrs. Cameron, she argued with herself that no onecouldpossibly blame her for not letting her in. Therefore, in high good humor, this young lady sat down to read, work, and chatter gayly. As the Doctor listened, he said to himself that surely there never was in the world a sweeter or more agreeable companion than his Polly.
With all her precautions, however, as the hours flew by, sundry muffled and distant sounds did penetrate to the sick chamber.
“What a peculiar noise!” remarked the Doctor.
“Can it be mice?” queried Polly’smostinnocent voice.
More time passed.
Suddenly the sharp and unmistakable sound of gravel being flung against the window forced the young lady to go to ascertain what was the matter.
On looking out, she saw what caused her to utter an amazed exclamation.
Mrs. Cameron, very red in the face, and holding the lost Scorpion in one encircling arm, while the other was thrown firmly round a most sulky-looking David; Firefly, pale and with traces of tears on her face; Flower, looking excited and eager—all stood under the window. This group were loud in demanding instant admission to the Doctor’s room.
“What is it, what is it?” questioned the patient from the bed.
“Oh, you arenotstrong enough to see them, father.”
“To see whom?”
“Aunt Maria—Scorpion—the children.”
“Yes, I am quite strong enough. Let them come up at once.”
“But father!”
“But Polly! You don’t suppose seriously that your Aunt Maria can disturb my equanimity?”
“Oh! She will worry you with so many tales.”
“About my very naughty family?”
“Yes, yes; you had much better not see her.”
“Because she wants me to get a chaperon for you?”
“Oh! yes—oh! don’t see her.”
“My dear, you can trust me; you happen to bemychildren, not hers. I would rather have the matter out. I knew there was something wrong from the way little Fly kissed my hand this morning. Show the deputation outside the window into the audience chamber at once, Polly.”
So admonished, the curtains had to be drawn back, the baize door reopened, and Polly—a most unwilling hostess—had to receive her guests. But no words can describe the babel of sounds which there and then filled the Doctor’s room; no words can tell how patiently the blind man listened.
Aunt Maria had a good tale to tell, and it lost nothing in the telling. The story of Scorpion’s disappearance; of the wickedness of David and Fly; of the recovering of the little animal from the man who had bought it, through Flower’s instrumentality; all this she told, following up with the full and particular history of the sale of a valuable diamond. At last—at long last—the good lady stopped for want of breath.
There was a delicious pause, then the Doctor said, quietly:
“In short, Maria, you have never come across such absolutely wicked children as the Maybrights and Dalrymples?”
“No, Andrew—never! never!”
“It is lucky they are not your children?”
“Thank Heaven!”
“Would it not be well to leave them to me? I am accustomed to them.”
“Yes; I wash my hands of you all; or no—not quite of you all—I heap coals of fire on your head, Andrew; I offer to relieve you of the charge of Daisy Rymple.”
“Of Flower?—but she is one of the worst of us.”
Here Flower ran over, crouched down by the Doctor, and put one of her hands into his.
“But I will be good with you,” she said with a half-sob.
“Hear her,” said the Doctor. “She says she will be good with me. Perhaps, after all, Maria, Icanmanage my own children better than any one else can.”
“Daisy is not your child—you had better give her to me.”
“I can’t part with Flower; she is an excellent reader. I am a blind man, but she scarcely allows me to miss my eyes.”
Flower gave a low ecstatic sob.
“And you will allow her to part with valuable gems like this?”
“Thanks to you, Maria, she has recovered her diamond.”
“Andrew, I never met such an obstinate, such a misguided man! Are you really going to bring up these unfortunate children without a chaperon?”
“I think you must allow us to be goodandnaughty in our own way.”
“Father is looking very tired, Aunt Maria,” here whispered Polly.
“My dear,Iam never going to fatigue him more. Andrew, I wash my hands of your affairs. Daisy, take your diamond. At least, my little precious dog, I have recoveredyou. We return to Bath by the next train.”
CHAPTER XIX.ONE YEAR AFTER.
“Helen, here’s a letter.”
“Yes. Who is it for?”
“I think it’s for us all. See: ‘the Misses Maybright and Miss Dalrymple.’”
“Well, where’s Flower? We can’t open it till Flower comes down. It must be—yes, it must be about father! You know it was yesterday his eyes were to be operated on.”
“As if I didn’t know it, Nell! I never closed my eyes last night. I felt nearly as bad as that awful day a year ago now. I wish I might tear open this envelope. Where is Flower? Need we wait for her?”
“It would be unkind not to wait! No one feels about father as Flower does.”
“David, please call her this instant!”
David flew out of the room, and Polly began to finger the precious letter.
“It’s thick,” she said; “but I don’t think there’s much writing inside. Yes,” she continued, “Flower is certainly very sensitive about father. She’s a dear girl. All the same, I’m sometimes jealous of her.”
“Oh, dear Polly! why?”
“Father thinks so much of her. Yes, I know it’s wrong, but I do feel a little sore now and then. Not often though, and never when I look into Flower’s lovely eyes.”
“She is very sweet with father,” said Helen. “It seems to me that during this past year she has given up her very life to him. And did you ever hear any one read better?”
“No, that’s one of the reasons why I’m devoured with jealousy. Don’t talk to me about it, it’s an enemy I haven’t yet learnt to overcome. Ah! here she comes.”
“AndFly,andthe twins!” echoed Helen. “Here’s a letter from father, Flower. At least, we think so. It’s directed to us and to you.”
A tall, very fair girl, with soft, shining eyes, and a wonderful mane of yellow hair came up and put her arm round Polly’s neck. She did not smile, her face was grave, her voice shook a little.
“Open the letter, Helen,” she exclaimed impatiently.
“Don’t tremble so, Flower,” said Polly.
But she herself only remained quiet by a great effort, as Helen unfastened the thick envelope, opened the sheet of paper, and held it up for many eager pairs of eyes to read:
“My Children:—I see again, thank God.“Your Father and loving Friend.”
“There!” said Polly. “Oh, I can’t talk about it. Flower, you are silly to cry. Will no one dance a hornpipe with me? I’ll choke if I don’t laugh. You’re the one to dance, Fly. Why, you are crying, too. Ridiculous! Where’s the letter? Let’s kiss it all round. That’ll make us better. His own blessed writing! Isn’t he a darling? Was there ever such a father?”
“Or such a friend?” exclaimed Flower. “I said long ago, and I say again now, that he’s the best man in the world, and I do really think that some day he’ll turn me into a good girl.”
“Why, you’re the nicest girl I know now,” said Polly.
And then they kissed each other.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.2. Frontispiece relocated to after title page.3. Typographic errors corrected in original:p. 7 aways to always (“always did think”)p. 8 breat-and-butter to bread-and-butterp. 102 nuseries to nurseries (“to the nurseries”)p. 154 by to my (“jealous of my influence”)p. 159 life to like (“looked like artificial flowers”)
1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.
2. Frontispiece relocated to after title page.
3. Typographic errors corrected in original:p. 7 aways to always (“always did think”)p. 8 breat-and-butter to bread-and-butterp. 102 nuseries to nurseries (“to the nurseries”)p. 154 by to my (“jealous of my influence”)p. 159 life to like (“looked like artificial flowers”)