She was by this time leaning over the balustrade beside Helen and looked up at her--such a sparkling, brilliant little maid!--with fearless eye. Something in the childless woman's heart went out to her, and beyond her again to the grave far away under the orange-trees of the man who was dying when she married him. If she could have had such a child!--it had been better, perhaps.
"Supposing we were to put up a signal here, saying, 'Mumsie and Maidie waiting for you,' wouldn't it be fun?" she said, smiling.
"Will you do it?" said the child quickly.
She shook her head. "It was only supposing, Maidie," she replied.
The little brilliant creature's face fell. "Oh! I wis' you would--make 'em stop right here, just this corner. I want him to stop, an' then I'd go on the ship too, an' sail, an' sail, an' sail." She had forgotten her disappointment in the new idea. That is what the world does generally, thought Helen; and yet----
"I suppose you love your father, don't you, Maidie?" she asked suddenly.
The child looked at her gravely. "'Normous much," she replied, repeating her stock phrase. "An' I love Sir Geoffley 'normous much too. We 're goin' to live together, an' I'm to be his darlin' for ever an' ever an' nay! Ain't we? Ain't we?"
And she flung herself into his arms as he approached them, an unreserved joyous bundle of curls, smiles, and dimples. His face relaxed from the hard look of pressing anxiety it had worn all day. He caught the child up, tossing her like a feather above his long length, then cuddling her close to kiss.
"For ever, and ever, and aye!" he echoed; "Never fear, Maidie, I'm yours to command."
Then he set her down and turned to his daughter. "Helen!" he said, "I've some business here which may keep me awhile. You'll drive back with Hirsch, of course."