Still with the miniature and some folds of my dress huddled together, I got up, and moving toward the desk clambered softly up the chair on which he sat. Putting one arm around his neck, I laid my head close to his cheek and murmured, after the fashion of my gipsy mother, “Oh, my Busne, my Busne!”
He started violently; my weight drew back the chair, and I fell heavily to the carpet.
“Child, child, how came you here?” cried my father, looking down upon me, pale as death, and excited beyond anything I had ever witnessed, “surely, surely, your mother cannot have brought you—tell me, was it Turner—was it”——
“No, no,” I answered, forcing back the tears of pain that sprung to my eyes, “it was myself, not Turner, not mamma, only myself—my own self; I came alone; I will go alone—I and the pretty Busne in my dress. That will not throw me down—that will not strike my head, and fill my eyes with sparks of fire. It is the good Busne, mamma and I loved—it will make her glad again. Let me go out—me and the good Busne.”
I still lay upon the floor, for the blow against my head made it reel when I attempted to move; but my hand clung to the miniature, and a fierce spirit of rage, hitherto unknown, possessed me. He stooped over me with his old, gentle manner, and attempted to lift me in his arms, but in my rage I shrunk away.
“You don’t love me—you don’t love mamma,” I cried, fighting him back with one hand. “She knows it—I know it, and so does good Turner. You go away one, two, four days, and all that time she sits this way, looking on the floor.”
I struggled to a sitting posture and sunk into the abstracted manner that had become habitual to my mother. I do not know what chord of feelings was struck by this position, but tears crowded into his eyes, and dropping on one knee by my side, he laid a hand on my head. I sprang up so violently that the miniature fell to my feet, glittering and open.
“Child, gipsy, where did you get this?” he cried, white with agitation, and seizing my arm. “There!” I answered, stamping my foot, and pointing with my clenched hand to the desk.
“Who told you—how dare you?”
“No one told me—dare, what is that?” I answered, meeting his pale anger with fire in my heart and eyes.