‘One of you young ladies must bide with Miss Dollars,’ said Nurse Halfpenny, decidedly, ‘or we shall have her fretting herself ill again.’
‘Oh, nursie, can’t you?’ entreated Gillian.
‘Me, Miss Gillian! How can I, when Miss Primrose is going out with the whole clamjamfrie, and all the laddies, into the wet plantations? Na—one of ye maun keep the lassie company. Ye’ve had your turn, Miss Gillian, so it should be Miss Mysie. It winna hurt ye, bairn, ye that hae been rampaging ower the house all the morning.’
Mysie knew it was her turn, but she also knew that nurse always favoured Gillian and snubbed her. She had a devouring longing to be with her dear Fly, and a certain sense that she was the preferred one. Must another pleasure be sacrificed to that very naughty Dolores, whose misdemeanours had deprived them of the visit to Rotherwood. She looked so dismal that Gillian said good-naturedly, ‘Really, Mysie, I don’t think mamma would mind Dolores’s being left a little while; I must go down to see about the Tree, because mamma gave me a message to old Webb, but I’ll come back directly. Or perhaps Dolly is going to sleep, and does not want any one. Go and see.’
Mysie on this crept quietly into the room, full of hope of escape, but Dolores was anything but asleep. ‘Oh, are you come, Mysie? Now you’ll go on with the story. I tried, but my eyes ache at the back of them, and I can’t.’
Mysie’s fate was sealed. She sat down by the fire and took up the book, ‘A Story for the Schoolroom,’ one of the new ones given from the Tree. It was the middle of the story, and she did not care about it at first, especially when she heard Fly’s voice, and all the others laughing and chattering on the stairs.
‘Didn’t they care for her absence?’ and her voice grew thick, and her eyes dim; but Dolores must not think her cross and unwilling, and she made a great effort, became interested in the girls there described, and wondered whether staying with Fly would have turned her head, after the example of the heroine of the book.
Dolores did not seem to want to talk. In fact, she was clinging to the reading, because she could not bear to speak or think of the state of affairs, and the story seemed, as it were, to drown her misery. She knew that her aunt and cousins were far less severe with her than she expected, but that could only be because she was ill. Had not Uncle Reginald turned against her, and Constance? It would all come upon her as soon as she came out of her room, and she was rather sorry to believe that she should be up and about to-morrow morning.
Mysie read on till the short, winter day showed the first symptoms of closing in. Then Lady Merrifield came up. ‘You here, little nurse?’ she said. ‘Run out now and meet the others. I’ll stay with Dolly.’ Mysie knew by the kiss that her mother was pleased with her; but Dolores dreaded the talk with her aunt, and made herself sleepy.