“I thought she had gone to you when she disappeared. She told me you had promised, and I said that if you had promised you would not forget, and a day or two afterwards she disappeared from her corner. I made sure you had sent for her, and that is what I meant in my letter.”
Madge’s face was rather hot. This was not the first time in her life that Bertram had had occasion to show her how she had let fall the chance of doing some small kindness through her eagerness to do something bigger by-and-by.
“Did you promise the poor child a country holiday, Madge?” asked Eva half-reproachfully. “I wish I had known. I would have taken care that she was not disappointed.”
“It wasn’t exactly a promise—at least I don’t think so, Cora, was it? I said something, I know, and I meant to be better than my word, only it wasn’t convenient just then, and I thought this would be so much better.”
Madge’s face was glowing, and her heart was beating rather fast. She felt as though whilst planning an act of rather munificent charity (which after all would cost her no self-denial) she had shirked the little present trouble of seeking an asylum for one little waif, half afraid that Arthur would think her absurd over the child, and that the cottagers might not like it. She knew it was little half-formed thoughts like these which had hindered her, and she felt a qualm of shame and self-contempt.
“I did not hear exactly,” answered Cora. “I was drawing at the time, but I certainly thought you had spoken of the summer, and I was surprised when you put it off till October.”
“And you might have written and told her,” said Bertram. “It would have cheered her to know herself remembered, and she would have had a definite hope to look forward to, instead of suffering the pain of feeling herself forgotten.”
“I was so busy, and I didn’t know how to write to a street child, and I had forgotten the address,” said Madge. “Oh, don’t all scold me! I have been very selfish. But I hope somebody else has taken her away, and to-morrow I’ll go and see about it!”
“Do,” said Bertram rather gravely, “for I begin to be afraid that instead of a country holiday it is illness which is keeping the child from her post. She was looking very white and thin when I saw her last. You know what the saying is about hope deferred, and it is especially hard for children.”
“Oh, I will go to-morrow! I will go to-morrow!” cried Madge, springing up. “I will make up to her for everything that has gone before!”