“Thank you.”
“Charlie, call Susan.—She is my boys’ old nurse, now mine. Only tell me you have good accounts from my boy Miles.”
“Oh yes;” and the hand tightly clasped the closely-written letter for which the mother’s eyes felt hungry. “He sent you his love, and he will write to you next time. He was so busy, his first lieutenant was down in fever.”
“Where was he?”
“Off Zanzibar—otherwise the crew was healthy—the 12th of August,” she answered, squeezing out the sentences as if constrained by the mother’s anxious gaze.
“And he was quite well when you parted with him?”
“Quite.”
“Ah! you nursed my boy, and we must nurse you for him.”
“Thank you, I am quite well.” But she bit her lip, and spoke constrainedly, as if too shy and reserved to give way to the rush of emotion; but the coldness pained Mrs. Poynsett, whose expansiveness was easily checked; and a brief silence was followed by Charlie’s return to report that he could not find nurse, and thought she was out with the other servants, watching for the arrival; in another moment, the approaching cheers caused him to rush out; and after many more noises, showing the excitement of the multitude and the advance of the bridal pair, during which Mrs. Poynsett lay with deepening colour and clasped hands, her nostrils dilating with anxiety and suppressed eagerness, there entered a tall, dark, sunburnt man bringing on his arm a little, trim, upright, girlish figure; and bending down, he exclaimed, “There, mother, I’ve brought her—here’s your daughter!”
Two little gloved hands were put into hers, and a kiss exchanged, while Raymond anxiously inquired for his mother’s health; and she broke in by saying, “And here is Anne—Miles’s Anne, just arrived.”