"Florence Cray," returned Miss Lee, "I don't want to have anything to say to you. If you have been teaching Amy to deceive her father and me, so much the worse. You need not come to work this afternoon. My sister, Mrs. Cuthbert, is come to see us, so I shall not require you. Come here, Amy."
"You'll not be hard on her, Miss Lee," entreated good-natured Florence, feeling Amy's fingers cling to her. "I do assure you there's been nothing no one could except against. It's been all most prudent and proper all along."
"I said I don't wish to hear nothing from you," said Rose. "If you call it prudent and proper to be walking with young men, when she is trusted to read to a sick child, I don't know what I shall hear next. Come here, Amy; come home with me."
"Indeed, aunt," sobbed Amy, "I've been in every day to see him."
"Come home now, Amy," said her aunt; "I can't talk to you now! No, don't cry—don't speak! I won't have you making yourself a show to the whole place any more than you have done already. That you should have deceived us so!" she sighed to herself. She was taking Amy in, not by the garden, but round the corner of the lane, to give a little more time for her to recover herself, and also to avoid facing Mrs. Rowe's eager eyes.
"Please don't tell father," once sighed Amy.
"Do you think I am going to be as deceitful as yourself?" was all the answer she got.
Amy's was a meek nature, and she knew she had been doing very wrong, so she uttered no more entreaties; indeed, she was in such a trembling, choking state, that her aunt had to wait, and walk slowly, while the girl tried to control herself enough to appear respectably—in a little lurking hope that perhaps Aunt Rose would be better than her word, and at least not tell Aunt Amy, her godmother, or Cousin Ambrose. She, who had been always reckoned so good a girl, and had never been in disgrace before! That it should have happened at such a time!
And when the garden gate was opened, there was a further shock. More people were in the house! Miss Manners, who had come home the night before, had come to inquire for little Edwin, and there was a buzz of voices, as she and Mrs. Cuthbert had most joyfully greeted one another.
Miss Manners was delighted to see the young missionary, and the only drawback was that poor little Edwin was evidently so much worse. He had been gradually growing worse and weaker for the last ten days or a fortnight, Polly and Mrs. Rowe said, and his mother had sad nights with him; but the parish doctor had said it was only feverishness caused by the heat, when he saw the boy last week, and did not seem to think it of consequence. The family depended on the mother's work, and in hay-making time she could not stay at home. Mr. Somers was gone from home, so was Miss Manners, and no one had thought much about the poor child; but he had become so much worse in the course of the morning, that it was plain that his mother and the doctor must both be sent for without loss of time.