‘I was so foolish at first, and gave poor Walter and the doctors a lot of trouble,’ she said. ‘Of course it never struck me, until afterwards, that the fairies had taken the children.’
She pressed the tips of the fingers of both hands to her forehead, and sat so for a while; then she roused herself again—
‘But what am I thinking about? I haven’t started to tell you about the children at all yet. Auntie! bring the children’s portraits, will you, please? You’ll find them on my dressing-table.’
The old woman seemed to hesitate.
‘Go on, Auntie, and do what I ask you,’ said Mrs Head. ‘Don’t be foolish. You know I’m all right now.’
‘You mustn’t take any notice of Auntie, Mr Ellis,’ she said with a smile, while the old woman’s back was turned. ‘Poor old body, she’s a bit crotchety at times, as old women are. She doesn’t like me to get talking about the children. She’s got an idea that if I do I’ll start talking nonsense, as I used to do the first year after the children were lost. I was very foolish then, wasn’t I, Walter?’
‘You were, Maggie,’ said the Boss. ‘But that’s all past. You mustn’t think of that time any more.’
‘You see,’ said Mrs Head, in explanation to me, ‘at first nothing would drive it out of my head that the children had wandered about until they perished of hunger and thirst in the Bush. As if the Bush Fairies would let them do that.’
‘You were very foolish, Maggie,’ said the Boss; ‘but don’t think about that.’
The old woman brought the portraits, a little boy and a little girl: they must have been very pretty children.