“The wind is high this morning,” said nurse, who had had her orders.
“How much it sounds like my dear sea,” said Bessie, unsuspectingly, as she glanced up at the window and saw the branches of the trees waving about in what was, as Mammy said, rather a high wind. “Can’t we have the window open, so we could hear it plainer? I could most think it was the sea.”
“It’s cool this morning. Wait for open windows till you’re dressed and downstairs,” said nurse.
Bessie said no more; but she kept turning her head and listening to the sound, which seemed to her to be distinct from that of the wind, and which sounded so very much like her beloved sea.
Meanwhile, Maggie was quite taken up with asking questions; hearing how grandmamma, Aunt Annie, the boys, Jane, and Flossie, had come to Newport by last night’s boat, reaching there early in the morning, before she had been roused from that ridiculously long sleep. Nothing less than having the whole family beneath their hospitable roof, would satisfy Colonel and Mrs. Rush; and they had contrived to carry their point.
Maggie’s “heaps of happiness” were rising higher and higher. When they were ready, Jane took them downstairs; but she led them by a back corridor, and seemed to take pains to keep them away from windows and doors which opened upon the outside of the house. Certainly she and nurse acted in a rather strange and “mysterious” manner that morning. But at last she had them safely at the door of the breakfast room, where she left them.
The whole party were still seated round the table, though the meal was about over when they entered; and they were going from one to another, offering kisses, smiles, and welcomes, when Bessie’s eyes fell through the open sash of a large bow-window, drawn there by that same sound she had heard upstairs.
For an instant she stood speechless with astonishment and delight; then, stretching out her hands towards the window, with her whole face lighting up, she cried,—
“It is, it is, it is the very, very sea! my own true sea!”