"Oh, Fee," I said nervously, "do you suppose he is ill,—that anything is going to happen to him? Do tell me frankly what you think!"
Felix bent over the stage property he was doing up, as he answered: "I've thought for some time past that he misses—mother—more than ever." Then he walked off with his bundle.
How utterly ashamed I felt! Nurse had noticed how badly he looked; Felix had, too,—and perhaps he had guessed the trouble truly; Phil, even, might have seen it, and I, papa's eldest daughter, who had promised mamma to take care of him, had been too selfishly absorbed in my own affairs to even think of him! It was no comfort to tell myself that papa was hard to get at; I felt I had neglected him.
"Don't worry, twinnie," Felix said, kindly, coming back to me. "You know care once killed a feline, in spite of his nine lives; so don't you go in for that sort of thing, or you'll get the worst of it. Go to bed now, and have a good sleep; by daylight things will look very much brighter; and at any rate you have your violin lessons ahead of you, and the performance behind you,—two good things. Good-night."
IV.
AND A FETICH.
TOLD BY NANNIE.
BUT my first thought in the morning was of papa, and I wondered what I ought to do for him; how I longed for dear mamma! If even Max were home!—for he was a great favourite with papa, and might be able to persuade him to see Dr. Archard. Though papa is so quiet and gentle, he is really a very difficult person to get to do things that he doesn't want to; and he never wants to have a physician for himself. I was feeling very blue, when something Betty said reminded me of my violin lessons, and then the very thought made me more cheerful.
Betty and I room together, and Nora and Kathie have the next apartment; and what did Nora and Betty do but put their heads together while we were dressing to think of a place in the house where I might go to practise every afternoon without disturbing papa. One or the other of the girls practises every afternoon, and the combination of violin squeaks and piano exercises would, we knew, disturb papa very much. Miss Marston, we were sure, would not permit them to neglect their music,—Nora is a fine musician, and Betty would be if she'd only put the same interest into that that she does into some other things, such as Indian clubs, and sliding down banisters, and playing practical jokes,—and we couldn't plan where my violin hour could best come in, when Nora thought of the old store-room at the top of the house. That was a good idea, because, by closing the door and hanging a thick quilt over it, not much of my scraping would escape to mingle with the piano scale-running, and so annoy papa. The girls' arranging for me in this way quite cheered me up,—the question of practising having troubled me a good deal, for I knew a noise of that kind would seriously interfere with papa's writing, and delay still longer the completion of the Fetich.