“Angel, Angel, come to tea!” And Gertrude, comfortable and substantial, in loving greeting threw arms round the new comers, Lance still carrying the child, who clung round his neck as he brought her into the room, full of his late fellow travellers, and also of a group of children.
“It is as if we had gone back thirty years or more,” was Angela’s cry, as she looked forth on what had been as little altered as possible from the old family centre; and Lance, setting down the child, spoke as the pretty little blue-eyed girls advanced to exchange kisses with their new aunt.
“Margaret, or Pearl, whom you knew as a baby; Etheldred, or Awdrey, and Dickie! Fely is at Marlborough. There, take little Lena—is that her name—to your table, and give her some tea.”
“Her name is Magdalen,” said Angela, removing the little black hat and smoothing the hair; but Lena backed against her, and let her hand hang limp in Pearl’s patronising clasp. Nor would she amalgamate with the children, nor even eat or drink except still beside “Sister,” as she called Angela. In fact, she was so thoroughly worn out and tired, as well as shy and frightened, that Angela’s attention was wholly given to her and she could only be put to bed, but not in the nursery, which, as Angel said, seemed to her like a den of little wild beasts. So she was deposited in the chamber and bed hastily prepared for the unexpected guest; and even there, being wakeful and feverish from over-fatigue, there was no leaving her alone, and Gertrude, after seeing her safely installed, could only go down with the hope that she would be able to spare her slave or nurse, which was it? by dinner-time.
“Who is that child so like?” said Dolores, in their own room.
“Very like somebody, but I can’t tell whom,” said Agatha. “Who did you say she is?”
“I cannot say I exactly know,” said Dolores. “I believe she is the daughter of Fulbert Underwood’s mate, on a sheep-farm in Queensland, and that as her mother died when she was born, she has been always under the care of this Angela, living in the Sisterhood there.”
“Not a Sister?”
“Not under vows, certainly. I never saw her before, but I believe she is rather a funny flighty person, and that Fulbert was afraid at one time that she would marry this child’s father.”
“Is he alive?”