CHAPTER X.
“Nursie,” said Sibyl, two months after the events related in the last chapter, “mother says that when my ownest father comes back again we’ll be very rich.”
“Um,” replied nurse, with a grunt, “do she?”
“Why do you speak in that sort of voice, nursie? It’s very nice to be rich. I have been having long talks with mother, and she has ’splained things. It means a great deal to be rich. I am so glad that my father is coming back a very, very rich man. I didn’t understand at first. I thought to be rich just meant to have lots of money, and big, big houses, and heaps of bags of sweeties, and toys and ponies, and, oh, the kind of things that don’t matter a bit. But now I know what to be rich really is.”
“Yes, dear,” said nurse. She was seated in the old nursery close to the window. She was mending some of Sibyl’s stockings. A little pile of neatly mended pairs lay on the table, and there was a frock which also wanted a darn reclining on the back of the old woman’s chair. Sibyl broke off and watched her nurse’s movements with close interest.
“Why do you wear spectacles?” she asked suddenly.
“Because, my love, my sight is failing. I ain’t as young as I was.”
“What does ‘not as young as you was’ mean?”
“What I say, my dear.”