“What a lot o’ fal-lals, to be sure!” he said, looking round in a by no means appreciative manner.
Sibyl and the farmer had to wait for some little time before Mrs. Haddo made her appearance. When she did so a great change was noticeable in her face; it was exceedingly pale. Her lips had lost their firm, their even noble, expression of self-restraint; they were tremulous, as though she had been suffering terribly. Her eyes were slightly red, as though some of those rare tears which she so seldom shed had visited them. She looked first at Farmer Miles and then in great amazement at Sibyl.
“Why are you here, Sibyl Ray?” she said. “I sent you to London with the other girls of the upper school this morning. What are you doing here?”
“Perhaps I can tell you best, ma’am, if you will permit me to speak,” said the farmer.
“I hope you will be very brief, Farmer Miles. I could not refuse your request, but we are all in great trouble to-day at the school. One of our young ladies—one greatly beloved by us all—is exceedingly, indeed I must add most dangerously, ill.”
“It’s about her we’ve come,” said the farmer.
Here Mrs. Haddo sank into a seat. “Why, what do you know about Miss Betty Vivian?”
“Ah, I met her myself, not once, but twice,” said Miles; “and I love her, too, just as the wife loves her, and the big twins, and the little twins, and the dogs—bless ’em! We all love Miss Betty Vivian. And now, ma’am, I must tell you that Miss Betty’s little sisters came to see the good wife this morning.”
Mrs. Haddo was silent.
“They told their whole story to the good wife. A packet has been lost, and Miss Betty lies at death’s door because o’ the grief o’ that loss. The little uns—bless ’em!—thought that the wife could find the packet. That ain’t in her line; it’s mothering and coddling and loving as is in her line. So she put the job on me; and, to be plain, ma’am, I never were more flabbergasted in the whole o’ my life. For to catch a poacher is one thing, and to catch a lost packet—nobody knowing where it be nor how it were lost—is another.”