"Why, yes, miss," was the answer; "the gipsies have been up to mischief, and there's a fine to-do."
"What have they been doing?"
"Setting snares for rabbits, and allowing dogs in the preserves, disturbing the game. Brown's put out because the master won't let him shoot a lurcher he's seen continually; it seems it belongs to a gipsy called Reuben Smallridge, who owns one of the caravans on the common, and to-day it's commenced carrying off the ducks from the lake; one was missing this morning, and Brown says he's certain the lurcher has had it. I declare it's too bad. Mr. Renford's going to see the village policeman, to tell him to keep an eye on the doings of this man, Smallridge—he's a youngish man, with a wife and two children."
Felicia wondered if Reuben Smallridge was the father of the two children she had befriended—it seemed very likely—but she questioned Price no further. A short while later she went to visit her uncle, and found him expecting her.
"So you are to have a week's holiday, Mary has been telling me," he said, as she drew a chair to his bedside and sat down to talk to him. "Where have you been all the afternoon? Out in the sunshine, that I can see by your complexion."
"I have been for a long walk with Uncle Nathaniel, and Doris, and Molly. Have you wanted me, Uncle Guy? I'll stay with you all day to-morrow."
"I shall not permit that, though I have no doubt you would make an excellent nurse, you are so quiet in your movements, and yet I believe you are naturally a merry little soul."
"I believe I am," Felicia admitted with a soft laugh; "mother was, too, when she was well. Oh, you don't know what fun we used to have together sometimes; we were never dull. Mother used to say people ought to try to make the best of things and be happy, because if they did not it was as though they had no faith in God. When she was a girl she used to be very dissatisfied and unhappy, often—"
"Yes? Go on. Tell me some more about your mother. Why was she dissatisfied and unhappy?"
"Well, you see, mother never knew who she really was, and that used to trouble her."