"Willie at once sat straight up in bed."
"He's got a little cold in his head, ma'am, but nothing much," was the cheerful reply, and Mamma saw by the child's face that there were no signs of anything worse.
"But, Miss Helena," Nurse went on, "has had a bad night, and her head is aching, so I thought it better to keep her in bed to breakfast."
Poor Nelly! she had not much appetite for breakfast, and the first thing she did when Mamma's dear face appeared at the door was to burst into tears.
But such tears do good, and still more relief was the telling the whole story, ending up with—
"Oh, Mamma, dear Mamma, I couldn't bear to think I had told you what was not quite true. And Willie feels just the same."
For Willie had crept in too, looking very grave, and winking his eyes hard to keep from crying.
It was all put right, of course; there was really no need for their Mother to show them where they had been wrong. They knew it so well. And Leigh did not get ill, after all.
Freda Kingley had had a lesson too, I am glad to say.
That very afternoon she and Hugh walked over to Halling Park, to "find out" if Leigh was all right.