There was little time for considering the question, for just at that moment Alice came in with a telegram. ‘It’s just as I feared from the letter,’ said Aunt Grace, after she had torn it open with trembling fingers. ‘All the worst symptoms are confirmed. I shall have to start by the next train,’ and with that she hurried away to pack and to give a few hasty directions to the servants.
‘Can’t I help you, Aunt Grace?’ asked Emmeline, running after her.
‘Well, will you look after Micky’s breakfast, and Kitty’s too, when she comes back?’ said Aunt Grace, with a faint smile. ‘That will help me more than anything.’
Sympathy had by no means dulled the edge of Micky’s appetite, and he was still in the middle of a leisurely breakfast when Kitty burst in, followed rather more quietly by Mr. Faulkner. ‘Aunt Grace—where’s Aunt Grace?’ she demanded, breathlessly.
‘I’m going to London to-day myself, so I want your aunt to let me travel with her and help her all I can,’ explained Mr. Faulkner to Emmeline, as Kitty ran away to look for Aunt Grace.
‘Thank you; I’m sure she’ll be very glad,’ said Emmeline, in her best grown-up manner. ‘Won’t you sit down and let me pour you out a cup of tea?’
‘Thanks very much, but I’ve had breakfast already,’ said Mr. Faulkner; and just at that moment Aunt Grace herself came in, with Kitty.
Mr. Faulkner did not wait to say ‘How do you do?’ Instead, he began at once: ‘You’ll let me travel with you, won’t you?’ not at all as if he was proposing a kindness, but in the way people ask for something they want very much.
‘Thank you! I shall be very glad,’ said Aunt Grace, and for one moment she smiled—smiled more with her eyes than with her lips, even though her eyes were full of tears. Emmeline felt in a vague, wondering way that Mr. Faulkner’s suggestion had comforted Aunt Grace more than her toast, or Kitty’s eagerness in running messages, or even Micky’s hug. It was odd, she thought, for Aunt Grace did not seem a person who would mind travelling alone.