"I am sure of it," answered his wife, "sure that something is troubling her very much, and I was about to speak of it to you. She is such a reticent, reserved child, that I did not like to try and force her confidence, although I have opened the way for her to give it to me if she chose to do so."
"I brought her a letter from Percy yesterday," said the colonel, "and when I handed it to her, she flushed painfully and seemed very nervous, and I noticed that she did not open it while I was in the room. I wonder if he is in any trouble."
Mrs. Rush shook her head. She had not even noticed this, and had no clew whereby she might guess at the cause of Lena's depression; but she said:
"I am going to send for Maggie and Bessie to come and spend the day with her. She is able, I think, to have them with her, and they may brighten her a little."
No sooner said than done; the colonel, always glad of any excuse for bringing these prime favorites of his to his own house, went for them himself, and finding them disengaged, this being Saturday and a holiday, brought them back with him.
He had the pleasure of seeing Lena's pale face light up when she saw them, and soon left the young patient with her two little friends to work what healing influences they might.
Now, although Lena was very fond of both these girls, Bessie was her special favorite, perhaps because she, being less shy than Maggie, had been the first to offer her sympathy and comfort at the time when Lena had been left at her uncle's with her heart wrung with anxiety and distress for her brother Russell who was then very dangerously ill.
And Bessie was now quick to see that something was wrong with Lena. Maggie saw it too, but shy Maggie, unless it was with some one as frank as herself, could not seek to draw forth confidences. But, with her usual considerate thoughtfulness, she did that which was perhaps better; she presently withdrew herself to the next room with Elsie and little May and amused them there, so that Lena might have the opportunity of speaking to Bessie if she so chose.
But not even to Bessie would or could Lena confide the story of Percy's misdoing and its direful results, longing though she might be for her sympathy and advice. Lena knew Bessie's strict conscientiousness, which was almost equalled by her own, and she knew also Bessie's complete trust in her parents, and how in any trouble her first thought would be to confide in them in full faith that they would be only too ready to lift the burden from her shoulders.
No, Bessie was not like herself; she had no dread of her father and mother, nor had any of the children in that large and happy family; and it would have seemed unnatural to them to have any such fears.