“Thibs says the bad men tore the place all to pieces last night and broke all the furniture and looking-glasses. Oh! grandpa, I—I—I—”
Suffering still from the nervous shock of the nocturnal alarm, the poor child’s breast heaved, and she burst into a pitiful fit of sobbing, which was some time before it subsided.
“Don’t think about it all, my pet,” said the doctor, tenderly stroking the soft little head. “Never mind about the old house, you shall come and live here with grandpa, and we’ll have such games in the old garden again.”
“Yes, and I may smell the flowers, and—and—but I want our own house too.”
“Ah, well, we shall see. There, you are not to think any more about that now.”
“Why doesn’t Mr Bayle come, grandpa? Did the bad people hurt him very much?”
“Oh no, my darling: he’s all right, and he punished some of them.”
“And when will papa come?”
“Hush, child,” cried Millicent in a harsh, strange voice, “I cannot hear to hear you.”
The child looked at her in a scared manner and clung to her grandfather, but struggled from his embrace directly after, and ran to her mother, throwing her arms about her, and kissing her and sobbing.