“My fault—my fault, my boy,” said the doctor hastily. “There, we shall go and see her now.”
There were only two familiar faces for Dexter to encounter, first, namely, those of Mr Hippetts and the schoolmaster, both of whom expressed themselves as being proud to shake their old pupil’s hand.
Then they ascended to the infirmary, where the old nurse lay very comfortable and well cared for, and looking as if she might last for months.
Her eyes lit up as she saw Dexter; and, when he approached, she held out her hand, and made him sit down beside her.
“And growed such a fine chap!” she said, again and again.
She had little more to say, beyond exacting a promise that he would come and see her once again, and when he was about to leave she put a small, dirty-looking, brown-paper packet in his hand.
“There,” she said. “I’d no business to, and he’d ha’ took it away if he’d ha’ known; but he didn’t; and it’s yours, for it was in your father’s pocket when he come here and died.”
The “he” the poor old woman meant was the workhouse master, and the packet was opened in his presence, and found to contain a child’s linen under-garment plainly marked—“Max Vanburgh, 12,” and a child’s highly-coloured toy picture-book, frayed and torn, and further disfigured by having been doubled in half and then doubled again, so that it would easily go in a man’s pocket.
It was the familiar old story of Little Red Riding-Hood, but the particular feature was an inscription upon the cover written in a delicate feminine hand—
“For my darling Max on his birthday, June 30th, 18—.
Alice Vanburgh, The Beeches, Daneton.”