Hetty’s face wore the bright, innocent expression of a child. Her illness seemed to have brought back a kind of pathetic lost youth to her. She was young, undoubtedly, in years, very young, but I felt convinced that before she had been so ill she had not worn this child-expression—her lips could not have been so reposeful in the old days, nor her eyes so unanxious.
She was lying now gazing calmly out of the window. Her hands were folded on her lap. The knitting she had been trying to accomplish had tumbled unheeded to the floor. When the bank-note rustled in my hand Hetty turned and looked at me. I got up and gave it to her.
“This is for you,” I said. “I have had a letter from a friend of ours, and he has sent you this.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. She clasped the note in both her hands. “Ten pounds!” she repeated. “Rosamund,” she continued, “I never had so much money as this in all my life before.”
“Well, make good use of it, dear child,” I said. “Put it away safely now. You’ll be sure to want it.”
“But ought not I to thank your friend?”
“I’ll do that for you. I’ll be sure to say something very pretty.”
Hetty looked at the ten-pound note as if she loved it. Then she stretched out her hand, and proffered it back to me.
“You had better have it, Rosamund. You buy everything that we want. Take it, and spend it, won’t you? You must need it very badly.”
“No, no, no! This is your own nest-egg, and no one else shall touch it. See, I will put it into your purse; I know where your little empty purse is, Hetty. I will put this nice crisp note into it. Is it not jolly to have so much laid by?”