For the moment she had forgotten Nelly's offences, and only remembered that she had been Bunny's friend. Nelly looked back at her as aghast as herself.
"Croup! I never thought of such a thing," she responded. "He has never had it before, has he?"
"Never. That was why I was so terrified. I didn't know what to do. There, don't look so frightened about it! It is over—weeks ago. Indeed, the next day he was about, as well as ever. I should never be so frightened again. It was the horrible novelty of it."
That frightened look in Nelly's eyes had softened the little woman's not very hard heart.
"I wish I had known," said Nelly. "I have wanted to come to see Bunny. I brought him a toy from Paris—a lamb that walks about by itself."
"Ah! you were thinking of him!"
There was complete reconciliation now in the mother's voice and eyes. How could she hate the girl who loved Bunny and had remembered to bring him from Paris a lamb that walked about by itself? She put an impulsive hand on Nelly's arm.
"Come home with me and see him. You are not very busy? You can spare the time?"
Nelly was on her way to keep a dress-making appointment, but she felt that not for worlds would she have said so. She flushed up quite happily. That moment of hostility on Mrs. Rooke's part had chilled her sensitive soul.
"Might I call at Sherwood Square for the lamb, do you think?" she asked diffidently.