"I wish she had painted my poor boy, ma'am; or that he had lived to carry her table. It would have made him so proud! But you say she was sorry for what happened to him?"
"Everybody was sorry. Father, for one, has never got over it. But the lady was on the beach when--when----"
"I know what you mean, my dear. Go on."
"Well; she looked so,--you can't think. Father was quite pale when he came out from among the crowd of children that had got about the mouth of the cavern; but he was nothing to her, in the comparison."
"Indeed! Well--my dear----"
"O! so white, and so grieved, more than frightened. She beckoned father to her, to settle what to do till some of the guard could come; and then she called the children after her, and went away, to take them away, though she could hardly walk."
"Dear me!" was all that escaped from nurse, who could not prevent its being seen through her emotion that she was flattered by this tale: and she did not attempt to conceal her gratification at hearing what a crowd attended the funeral, and how the people gathered to read and hear read the proclamation of reward for the detection of the murderers. And all this interest was about her son! Nothing could ever make up to her, she told Rebecca, for his body being hidden for a time, as it was. It would have been such a consolation to her to know that he made as beautiful a corpse as she had often said he would. Those who had seen how her boy looked when he was asleep might be sure that he would look better when he was dead than ever he did when he was alive.
While Rebecca was meditating what she could say by way of consolation for Nicholas not having made so beautiful a corpse as might have been expected from him, certain sounds from the other side of the room attracted her attention, and half diverted poor nurse's.
"So the Lieutenant said of him.... O! no need to start, ma'am, at Mr. Brown's rapping his fiddle. He is never really in a passion, though he pretends anger, to keep the young folks in order."
"But they have done something to make him angry. Hark! what a rattling in the fiddle!"