Without further ceremony this strange woman seized the shoe from him, and with trembling hands turned it over and looked closely at the wooden sole. Then she clasped it to her breast, and with a sudden light in her eyes exclaimed:
“I knew it. I felt it was her. Heaven be praised!” and before Jackie had at all regained his breath, she had rushed away down the nut-walk, and was out of sight.
Mary, who had remained unseen, looked down from the tree.
“Isn’t she an odd woman?” she said. “Do you think she’s mad? Or perhaps those are Yorkshire ways.”
“If they are,” replied Jackie much ruffled and discomposed, “I don’t like Yorkshire ways at all. What business has she to cut away like that with my shoe?”
There was something mysterious altogether about Maggie’s behaviour, for when the children reached the house they found that the others were full of excitement and curiosity. She had been seen to rush wildly in from the garden with the little shoe hugged to her breast, and now she had been talking to mother alone for a long while. But soon tea-time came, all manner of games followed, and the school-room maid was forgotten in more interesting matters. Even Mary was able to put away her troubles for a little while, and almost to enjoy herself as she had been used before they began. She was to stop at the White House that night, because it was still wet and stormy, so she resolved not to think of the chickens or Perrin or Seraminta just for that one evening. It would be time enough to be miserable again when morning came.
Everything went on merrily until Jackie’s guests were all gone away.
“What shall we do now?” he said, yawning a little, for there was still an hour to be filled up before bed-time. Just as he spoke Mrs Chelwood came into the school-room.
“Children,” she said, “would you like me to tell you a story?”
Nothing could possibly be better, and the offer came at the right moment when things were feeling a little flat; the children received it joyfully, and gathered round their mother eagerly, and yet with a certain seriousness, for it was an honour as well as a delight to have a story from her—it happened so seldom.