The doctor followed me very quick, for he thought from my impatience that something serious must be the matter. He walked up to my mother’s room, and I hastened to open the door; when, to my surprise, I found my mother standing before the glass arranging her hair.
“Well!” exclaimed my mother, “this is very pretty behaviour—forcing your way into a lady’s room.”
The doctor stared, and so did I. At last I exclaimed, “Well! father thought he’d killed her.”
“Yes,” cried my mother, “and he’s gone away with it on his conscience, that’s some comfort. He won’t come back in a hurry; he thinks he has committed murder, the unfeeling brute! Well, I’ve had my revenge.”
And as she twisted up her hair, my mother burst out screaming—
“Little Bopeep, she lost her sheep,
And couldn’t tell where to find him;
She found him, indeed, but it made her heart bleed
For he left his tail behind him.”
“Why, then, doctor, it was all sham,” exclaimed I.
“Yes; and the doctor’s come on a fool’s errand—
“‘Goosey, Goosey Gander,
Whither dost thou wander?
Upstairs and downstairs,
And in a lady’s chamber.’”
The doctor shrugged up his shoulders so that his head disappeared between them; at last he said, “Your mother don’t want me, Jack, that’s very clear. Good morning, Mrs Saunders.”