Accustomed to invite and receive the unlimited confidence of her children, Mrs. Bradford still treated them as if they were reasonable beings, and on the rare occasions, such as the present, when they withheld it, she was satisfied to believe that they had good and sufficient reasons for so doing.
CHAPTER VII.
A BOX OF BONBONS.
If there was one of the two sisters who lay awake after the proper time in the pretty room which Maggie and Bessie Bradford called their own—a thing not of frequent occurrence, it was usually Maggie, when she was revolving in her mind some grand idea, either as the subject of a composition, or some of the schemes for business or pleasure which her fertile brain was always devising. But on this night it was Bessie who could not sleep for worry and anxiety over Lena's perplexities. As a usual thing she was off to the land of Nod the moment her head was on the pillow; but to-night she lay tossing and uneasy until she thought the night must be almost gone. Then suddenly, as a bright thought came to her—an idea which she thought almost worthy of Maggie herself—she heard her mother in her own room.
"Mamma," she called, "is it almost time to rise?"
"Why, no, my darling," said Mrs. Bradford, coming in, "it is only half-past ten o'clock. What woke you?"
"Oh, I have not been asleep at all, mamma," answered her little daughter. "I thought I had been awake all the night."
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Bradford; "but it is certainly time that you were asleep. Have you been troubling yourself, dear, over that secret?"
"I suppose that I have, mamma," answered Bessie; "but I have had a very nice thought which I believe will help that secret, and I will try not to be troubled about it any more."
And five minutes later, when her mother looked in again to see if she were quiet, she found her sleeping.