“Dame, is this world so bad?” saith Jack, letting his nose appear above the bed-clothes.
“Go to sleep, the weary lot of you!” was Dame Hilda’s irritable answer.
“Because,” saith Jack, ne’er a whit daunted—nothing ever cowed Jack—“if it is so bad, hadn’t you better be off out of it? You’d be better off, I suppose, and we shouldn’t miss you,—that I’ll promise. Do go, Dame!”
Jack spake these last words with a full compassionate air, as though he were seriously concerned for Dame Hilda’s happiness; but she, marching up to the bed where Jack lay, dealt him a stinging slap for his impudence.
“Ah!” saith Jack in a mumbled voice, having disappeared under the bed-clothes, “this is a bad world, I warrant you, where folks return evil for good o’ this fashion!”
We heard no more of Jack beyond divers awesome snores, which I think were not altogether sooth-fast: but before many minutes had passed, the door of the antechamber opened, and my Lady, donned in travelling gear, entered the nursery.
Dame Hilda’s words had given me the fancy that some sorrowful, if not shocking news, had come to her; and I was therefore much astonished to see a faint flush in her cheeks, and a brilliant light in her eyes, which looked as though she had heard good news.
“My children,” said our mother, “I come to bid you all farewell—may be a long farewell. I have heard that—never mind what; that which will take me away. Meg, and Joan, and Ibbot, must go with me.”
“Take me too!” pleaded little Blanche.
“Thee too!” repeated our mother, with a loving smile. “Nay, sweetheart! That cannot be. Now, my children, I hope you will all be good and obedient to Dame Hilda while I am away.”