"Yes, they could see the little girl if they didn't mind coming upstairs. She had just been got up and the nurse had gone out for a breath of fresh air. Very warm for the time of year wasn't it."
Miss Morecraft opened the bedroom door, and without any announcement squeezed herself against the outer wall that Mr. Wycherly might enter.
Jane-Anne was seated in an armchair at the window looking frail as a sigh. She wore a bright pink flannelette dressing-gown which accentuated her pallor. She loved this garment dearly, for dressing growns were not included in the uniform of "The Bainbridge." Most of the girls were far too strong and healthy to need them, and Mrs. Dew had made this for Jane-Anne during one of her many illnesses.
Mr. Wycherly stood in the narrow doorway and the afternoon sun shone in on him, on his silvery hair and gentle, high-bred face.
"May we come in, my dear?" he asked. "Do you feel well enough to see us?"
Poor Jane-Anne was too weak to stand up and curtsey. She flushed and paled, and paled and flushed as she turned her thin, sensitive little face towards Mr. Wycherly, but there was no mistaking the welcome in her great eyes, as she whispered: "Please do, sir, I'm so sorry I mayn't get up and put a chair for you."
"I'll get him a chair," said Edmund, pushing in under his guardian's arm, for the door was very narrow. "I thought I'd show him to you before you came to-morrow, then you won't feel strange with any of us."
There wasn't much room in that bedroom. The bed took up most of the floor and there was only one other chair besides Jane-Anne's, so Edmund sat on the end of the bed.
"You must make haste and get strong," Mr. Wycherly said kindly, "and if this fine weather goes on you'll be able to sit in the garden and get plenty of fresh air that way! And when you are able we must see about a little drive. That ought to be good for you."
"Oh!" exclaimed Jane-Anne. "Oh! I don't know how I shall wait till to-morrow, I want to come so much."