'We'll meet to-morrow,' she said, 'and then you'll see I'm no dream.' Then she paddled over the cold bare boards on those little feet, and casting a last bright look over her shoulder to Alison in the bed, she was gone. Alison watched the light in the crack under the door, until it grew fainter and fainter, and then disappeared. Then, not a little comforted, she turned round in her nest, and slept like a child.
The next morning, Alison ventured to take her usual place in the household, and was met with smiles.
'Now you are come to your senses, Alison,' her mother said, 'and you will live to thank me that I showed you the way. See here, now,' she went on, 'this fine Edinburgh madam that has come here while you were up yonder, has gotten an influenza that will keep her in her bed for a week, I'm thinking. Not that I grudge it her either, for it aye goes clean against the grain wi' me to have sheets soiled for the one night; I'd far sooner get the week's work out o' them. You must take madam's breakfast up, though, and make yourself civil, Ally. She was aye a clever, going-about body, Nancy, fine and gleg at the dressing of herself up. 'Tis a God-send her coming now. She'll set us in the fashions for your wedding, and show us how to sort my bonny silk.'
Alison shuddered; but she prepared the tray for the visitor's breakfast, and proceeded to take it upstairs, her heart beating fast with curiosity.
Under the flowered curtains of the best bed a little figure, still huddled in the pink wrapper, was gripped in the agueish shivering of an influenza cold. It started up, however, with unimpaired liveliness when Alison appeared.
'Ah, child,' she cried, 'I knew it would be you! Come, let us look at each other in the broad daylight. Why, what a Juno it is!' looking Alison up and down. 'What a great, big girl, to be topped by those baby curls.'
Alison came to the bed, pulled the tumbled coverlet straight, and shook up the pillows, with her sensible literal air.
'You are feverish, ma'am,' she said, 'and shouldn't talk. Here is a warm shawl my mother sends to hap about you, and she says, please, will you keep still and warm, and she will bring you a hot posset presently.' The invalid laughed in the grave, girlish face.
'Oh, Solomon!' she said, 'and do you expect me to obey your good mother, and do the wise thing at the wise moment? You little know poor Nannie yet.' Her dark, bright eyes grew full of sadness for a moment, and she had the air of some pretty, soft, appealing little animal—a kitten, perhaps—checked in its play by a hurt. 'I want to talk,' she said, 'to talk, and talk, and talk. We must, you know, Alison, so as to see how we are to outwit Mr. Cheape.'
'When you are better,' said Alison, 'we will talk. I doubt you will hear plenty of Mr. Cheape,' she added, soberly.