“Nancy!” he called to his daughter. “I say, Nancy!”
Nancy was in her first sleep. She opened her eyes at the sound of the farmer’s voice, and said in a sleepy tone:
“Well, what now, dad? I wish you wouldn’t call me just because you come in late.”
“You get up, my girl. There’s trouble downstairs. Missy has come.”
“Missy? Miss Pen?”
“No, not Miss Pen; the other one—the one we love, both of us—the one who was our queen—Miss Pauline. She’s downstairs, and she’s shocking bad. She has come to me to help her.”
“Why, of course she’s bad, father,” said Nancy. “Don’t you know all that happened? Pauline was nearly drowned at Easterhaze, and they say she hasn’t been quite, so to say, right in her head ever since. I have been nearly mad about it.”
“Sane, you mean, to my way of thinking,” exclaimed the farmer; “for you never said a word to me about it, eating your meals as hearty and contented as you please, buying your winter finery, and talking about going to London for Christmas. Give me a friend who will think of me when I am in trouble. But the lass knows what’s what, and it isn’t to you she has come; it’s to me. She wants me to help her because I made her a promise, forsooth! But you come right down, for she will want a bit of cuddling from a girl like yourself. Come right down this minute and see her, for she badly wants some one to do something for her.”
Now, Nancy was really fond of Pauline, notwithstanding her father’s words, and she got up willingly enough and ran downstairs to the kitchen; and when she saw her little friend sitting by the fire, looking very white, her head dropped forward, and her big black eyes fixed with an almost vacant expression straight before her, a great lot of Nancy’s heart did go out to the sad and unhappy girl. She rushed to her side, threw her arms round her, and hugged her over and over again.
“Come,” said the farmer, “it’s a bit of something to eat she wants; then to go upstairs and share your bed with you, Nance. And in the morning, why, I am at her service.”