"Sit ye still," said nurse, without looking at Miss Adams. "I sha'n't let ye go to have I know not what notions put into your head."
Miss Adams looked vexed, and bit her lip, then she laughed. "Now, don't be cross, nurse. I am not going to say anything to Bessie which you or her mother would not approve."
"Maybe," said nurse, dryly.
"And if Mrs. Bradford were here, I am sure she would let Bessie come."
"Maybe," said nurse again, beginning to trot baby rather harder than she liked.
Miss Adams stood tapping the toe of her gaiter with her riding whip. "I promise you," she said, "that I will let her come back to you in a moment or two, and that I will not do the least thing which could trouble or tease her."
"Promises and fair words cost nothing," said nurse.
"How dare you say that to me?" she said, losing her temper at last. "Whatever else I may have done, I have never yet broken my word! Bessie,"—she said this in a softer tone,—"don't think that of me, dear. I would not say what was not true, or break a promise, for the world." Then to nurse again: "You're an obstinate old woman, and—Look at that child!"
These last words were said in a startled tone and with a frightened look.
Nurse turned her head, started up, and then stood still with fear and amazement. Finding himself unnoticed, Master Franky had concluded that he had sat quiet long enough, and slipping off his stone, he had scrambled up the bank and walked upon the bridge. About the centre of this he found a broken place in the railing through which he put the stick and line with which he was playing to fish. Putting his head through after it, he saw that it did not touch the water and that just in front of him was the projecting end of one of the logs. Here, he thought, he could fish better, and slipping through, he was now where Miss Adams told nurse to look at him, stooping over, with one fat hand grasping the railing and with the other trying to make his line touch the water. The bridge was four or five feet above the stream, and although a fall from it might not have been very dangerous for a grown person, a little child like Franky might easily have been swept away by the current, which was deepest and swiftest where he was standing.