“Oh, Davie, don’t be tiresome!”
David only said it over again in the same words, and put his hand down on her letter in his earnestness.
“Come away, Davie,” said Miss Fosbrook; “don’t tease your sister.”
“I want her to say I may have her sixpence on Monday for the pig.”
“No, you sha’n’t, then,” said Susan angrily; “you care for the nasty pig more than for poor Mamma or anyone else, and you sha’n’t have it.”
So seldom did Susan say anything cross, that everyone looked up surprised. Miss Fosbrook saw that it was sheer unhappiness that made her speak sharply, and would not take any notice, except by gently taking away the pertinacious David.
He was very much distressed at the refusal; and when Miss Fosbrook told him that his brother and sister could not think of such things when they were in such trouble, he only answered, “But Hannah Higgins won’t get her pig.”
Miss Fosbrook was vexed herself that her friend David should seem possessed with this single idea, as if it shut out all others from his mind. He was consoled fast enough; for Susan, with another great sob, threw down her pen, and coming up to stroke him down with her inky fingers, cried out, “O Davie, Davie, I didn’t mean it; I don’t know why I said it. You shall have my sixpence, or anything! But, oh dear, I wish the message was come, and we were going to dear Mamma, for I can’t write, and I don’t know what to do.”
Then she went back to her place, and tried to write, and sat with her head on her hand, and dawdled and cried and blotted till it grew so near post-time that at last Miss Fosbrook took the longest of her scrawls, and writing three lines at the bottom to say how it was with them all, directed it to Captain Merrifield, thinking that he would like it better than nothing from home, sent it off, and made Susan come out to refresh her hot eyes and burning head in the garden.
Sam presently came and walked on her other side, gravely and in silence, glad to be away from the chatter and disputes of the younger ones. That summons had made them both feel older, and less like children, than ever before; but they did not speak much, only, when they sat down on a garden bench, as Miss Fosbrook held Susan’s hand, she presently found some rough hard young fingers stealing into her own on the other side, and saw Sam’s eyes glistening with unshed tears. She stroked his hand, and they dropped fast: but he was ashamed to cry, and quickly dried them.