Beryl awoke on this bright March morning with the sense of a strange weight upon her mind. She could not understand what made her feel so heavy-hearted, till she saw that she was not lying as usual in her own little bed, but on a somewhat frail couch, which Lucy had hastily arranged for her. Then she remembered all, and sprang up, that she might take a look at the little companion who had been brought to her so strangely on the previous night. The child was sleeping peacefully in the bed close by. Beryl crept quietly to her side, and looked at her with a glance of love and pity, for a sense of the child's great loss was still prominent in her mind. The child looked very pretty as she lay with one arm bent beneath her curly head, and the long, dark eyelashes resting on her soft, pale cheek. Beryl stooped and kissed her very gently, so as not to rouse her.
"What a dear little thing she is!" said Beryl to herself. "I wonder what her name is! How I should like to have her for a little sister! I never thought before that I should care for a sister."
At this moment Lucy entered the room. She exclaimed at seeing Miss Beryl standing with bare feet on the cold matting.
"Hush, Lucy," said Beryl, in a shrill whisper, giving her nurse an indignant glance. "You will wake the child if you make such a noise, and she looks so tired, poor little thing."
Lucy made no reply, but quietly fetched the young lady's shoes and stockings from the other side of the room, and Beryl had time to observe that her nurse's eyes were very red, as though she had been weeping.
"Whatever is the matter with you, Lucy?" she asked. "What have you been crying about? Has Aunt Cecilia been scolding you again?"
"Oh no, it's not that, Miss Beryl," replied Lucy, "it's about my brother. They have been telling me what danger he was in last night; and I can't help thinking whatever I should have done if I had lost him."
"But he is all right, is he not?" asked Beryl. "He was not hurt at all, was he?"
"Oh no; he is quite safe and well; not hurt, at least, as I know of," said Lucy.
"Then why ever should you cry?" demanded Beryl, in a tone of astonishment. "I should think you ought to be very glad that he was able to save this little girl and her mother. I think it was so good and brave of him. I should be quite proud of my brother if I were you. Why, I heard papa talking of it last night, and he said Joe deserved a medal from the Royal Humane Society, and he thought he would very likely get it too. Does not that please you, Lucy?"