“I’m glad, I know,” said Cissy, jumping from the term, and giving a warm hug to Rose. “I thought God would send somebody. You see, Father was down a bit when we came here this morning, and left everybody behind us; but you’ve come now, and he’ll be ever so pleased. It isn’t bad, you know—not bad at all—and then there’s Father. But, Rose, what have you done to your hand? It’s tied up.”
“Hush, dear! Only hurt it a bit, Cissy. Don’t speak of it,” said Rose in an undertone; “I don’t want mother to see it, or she’ll trouble about it, maybe. It doesn’t hurt much now.”
Cissy nodded, with a face which said that she thoroughly entered into Rose’s wish for silence.
“Eh dear, dear! that we should have lived to see this day!” cried Margaret Thurston, melting into tears as she sat down in the corner.
“Rose!” said her father suddenly, “thy left hand is bound up. Hast hurt it, maid?”
Rose’s eyes, behind her mother’s back, said, “Please don’t ask me anything about it!” But Alice turned round to look, and she had to own the truth.
“Why, maid! That must have been by the closet where I was hid, and I never heard thee scream,” said Margaret.
“Nay, Meg, I screamed not.”
“Lack-a-day! how could’st help the same?”
“Didn’t it hurt sore, Rose?” asked John Thurston.