"Now," she said to Bertie, "this paper is a secret, and you mustn't tell Nurse."
"I haven't been a naughty boy?" questioned poor Bertie, who always connected secrecy with misdoings.
"You've been a 'markably good boy," said Freda approvingly; and Bertie ran back to his brick-building with great content. "Now we'll have to get the room ready," said Freda triumphantly, "and then we'll find the stranger."
"But we mustn't do anything just now," said Daffy, who generally checked Freda's rapid plans. "It won't be proper. Look at Nurse. She's still crying! And we're forgetting to cry ourselves."
So they sat quietly in their corner, and began to talk about their father, and then they felt more and more miserable, and more tears fell. When Jane came in they felt pleased to hear her say to Nurse:
"The poor children! How they feel it! 'Twill be comfort for us to have the Mistress down. 'Tis a terrible blow, sure enough!"
[CHAPTER V]
Feeding the Hungry
MRS. HARRINGTON did not come down to her children for some days. When she arrived she was in deep black, and she brought the family lawyer with her. She did not see much of her children, but then she never had. She cried a little over them the first evening of her arrival, then she began to discuss their clothes with Nurse.
"I will have no black frocks. Keep them in their holland and white ones, and give them black sashes and ribbons, and put a black ribbon round their hats. That is all that is necessary."