“He is bad—bad—bad!” and she looked like a little demon.
Being a wise woman, Dowson knew at once that she had come upon a hidden child volcano, and it would be well to let it seethe into silence. She was not a clever person, but long experience had taught her that there were occasions when it was well to leave a child alone. This one would not answer if she were questioned. She would only become stubborn and furious, and no child should be goaded into fury. Dowson had, of course, learned that the boy was a relative of his lordship’s and had a strict Scottish mother who did not approve of the slice of a house. His lordship might have been concerned in the matter—or he might not. But at least Dowson had gained a side light. And how the little thing had cared! Actually as if she had been a grown girl, Dowson found herself thinking uneasily.
She was rendered even a trifle more uneasy a few days later when she came upon Robin sitting in a corner on a footstool with a picture book on her knee, and she recognized it as the one she had discovered during her first exploitation of the resources of the third floor nursery. It was inscribed “Donal” and Robin was not looking at it alone, but at something she held in her hand—something folded in a crumpled, untidy bit of paper.
Making a reason for nearing her corner, Dowson saw what the paper held. The contents looked like the broken fragments of some dried leaves. The child was gazing at them with a piteous, bewildered face—so piteous that Dowson was sorry.
“Do you want to keep those?” she asked.
“Yes,” with a caught breath. “Yes.”
“I will make you a little silk bag to hold them in,” Dowson said, actually feeling rather piteous herself. The poor, little lamb with her picture book and her bits of broken dry leaves—almost like senna.
She sat down near her and Robin left her footstool and came to her. She laid the picture book on her lap and the senna like fragments of leaves on its open page.
“Donal brought it to show me,” she quavered. “He made pretty things on the leaves—with his dirk.” She recalled too much—too much all at once. Her eyes grew rounder and larger with inescapable woe; “Donal did! Donal!” And suddenly she hid her face deep in Dowson’s skirts and the tempest broke. She was so small a thing—so inarticulate—and these were her dead! Dowson could only catch her in her arms, drag her up on her knee, and rock her to and fro.
“Good Lord! Good Lord!” was her inward ejaculation. “And she not seven! What’ll she do when she’s seventeen! She’s one of them there’s no help for!”