“Miss Lily, where did you find the letter? When was it you got it?”
“I found it down under the ferns,” said Lily. “It wasn’t yesterday—mother took us out yesterday. It was Friday.”
Florence stared at the letter. Wyn’s poacher with the red beard—that must have been Harry himself! And, oh! she and Wyn had set the keepers to look out for him.
Florence turned quite pale. She had derived vague and awful notions of Mr Cunningham’s power from the way in which everything at Ashcroft was referred to his pleasure. She did not know what he would do to a “poacher”—also a vague character to the town-bred girl.
“You had better undress Miss Lily,” said the nurse, fearing that her new underling was a dawdle.
“Read me what the fairies say,” said Lily.
“Not to-night,” said Florence, stuffing the letter in her pocket. “You tell Florrie about the fairies to-morrow.”
She bustled about and did her work, till, Lily’s toilet being complete, she knelt up in her bed in her little nightgown, and said her prayers. She went through the usual baby prayers, which were pretty much all that Florence herself had to say, since she had never felt the need of any others; but when she had finished she still knelt with her two little hands clasped together, and said in a clear, parrot-like little voice:
“Please, God, make all wrongs right, and bring travellers safe home, for Jesus’ sake.”
“Miss Lily—who’s a traveller?” said Florence, startled.