“Jessica,” he said, “the trouble I’d like to talk to him about is that your mother’s come back again.”
She started, and looked at him with great, wide-open eyes of amazement and terror, while her face quivered, and she twitched her small shoulders a little, as if already shrinking from a blow. But the expression of pain and fear passed away quickly, and though her face was pale a smile came upon it.
“Doesn’t God know that mother’s come back?” she asked.
There was no need for Daniel to answer her question, but he turned it over and over again in his own mind with something very much like doubt. It seemed as if it would have been so much better, especially at this crisis, for Jessica’s mother to remain absent that it was as if God had given up His particular providence over the affairs of insignificant people like himself and Jessica. It would be no wonder if amid all the affairs of the hosts of angels, and the myriads of worlds of which he had a vague idea, that God should overlook a little matter like the tramping to and fro of a drunken woman. It was a saddening thought; but Daniel was in the mood to cherish it.
“Do you know where mother is?” asked Jessica.
“No, deary,” answered Daniel. “I gave her a shilling last night to pay for her lodging and breakfast. She told me she’d had nothing to eat or drink all day; but the nurse said she’d been to see the minister yesterday afternoon and had a good meal. She’s sure to come again.”
“Ay, she’s sure to come again,” echoed Jessica.
“And so,” continued Daniel, “nurse and me have agreed you’d better stay with the young ladies for a bit, out of the way like, till I can see how I can settle with your mother. You’d be glad to stay with Miss Jane and Winny, Jessica?”
“Yes,” she answered, her face quivering again, as if she could scarcely keep herself from crying, “but I’d like to see my mother.”
“See your mother!” repeated Daniel, with unfeigned astonishment; “whatever for, Jessica?”