CHAPTER IV. — THE STRAY CHICKENS.
But when our father came not here,
I thought if we could find the sea
We should be sure to meet him there,
And once again might happy be.—Ballad.
“What was Dr. Lucas saying to you?” asked Carey, sitting up in bed after her breakfast.
“He said, my dear, that you were really well now,” said Mrs. Lucas, tenderly; “and that you only wanted rousing.”
She clasped her hands together.
“Yes, I know it. I have been knowing it all yesterday and last night. It hasn’t been right of me, keeping you all this time, and not facing it.”
“I don’t think you could, my dear.”
“Not at first. It seems to me like having been in a whirlpool, and those two went down in it.” She put her hands to her temples. “But I must do it all now, and I will. I’ll get up now. Oh! dear, if they only would let me come down and go about quietly.” Then smiling a piteous smile. “It is very naughty, but of all things I dread the being cried over and fondled by Ellen!”
Mrs. Lucas shook her head, though the tears were in her eyes, and bethought her whether she could caution Mrs. Robert Brownlow not to be too demonstrative; but it was a delicate matter in which to interfere, and after all, whatever she might think beforehand, Caroline might miss these tokens of feeling.
She had sat up for some hours the evening before, so that there was no fear of her not being strong enough to get up as she proposed; but how would it be when she left her room, and beheld all that she could not have realised?