"Oh, no!" cried Lilian eagerly. "You must come, Nannie, if you possibly can, indeed you must! It will quite spoil my pleasure to know that you are spending Christmas Eve alone!"
"Oh, my pretty dear, it's good of you to care about me," said the old woman, "but—"
"I want you to be happy," Lilian interposed, "especially at Christmas time! Oh, I hope you'll make up your mind to come!"
"I'll come missie," Nannie replied—"that is, if I'm well enough; but I never can tell one day how I may be the next."
The old woman hobbled out to the door of her cottage after her visitors, and saw them take their seats in the pony-carriage and drive off. Lilian smiled and waved her hand to the children, who watched their departure, and called out to them in her bright clear voice:
"Good-bye! Mind you're all at the schoolroom in good time for tea on Christmas Eve! Don't forget!"
"No fear of that," remarked the little girl whose mother did charing at the Hall. "As though we should be likely to forget, indeed!"
Then her eyes fell upon Nannie Davey standing in the doorway of her cottage, with a gentler expression upon her face than it usually wore, and she said to her: "Miss Lilian doesn't look blind, does she? And yet they say she will never see as long as she lives!"
"Poor dear," murmured the old woman; "but there, she doesn't need pity—she's one of the happiest children I ever knew, and so thoughtful for other folks, too!"
Meanwhile Mrs. Coker and Lilian were homeward bound, and Bess, being fully conscious of the fact, trotted over the ground as fast as she could go—not so fast as she would have liked, perhaps, for the roads were slippery with frost, and the driver had to keep a tight hand on the reins, especially going downhill.