“Naughty Jack!” said Miss Roy. “But really, Nan, it was a very ugly doll; if you wish to dress it again I will find some pieces for you some half-holiday. Put it in the cupboard now and forget about it. Come to me in a few minutes for your lessons.”
CHAPTER VII.—THE FALL.
Nan had gone about for the remainder of the day with a lump in her throat. It was not the least like the heavy weight of sorrow which pressed on her yesterday—but nevertheless it was a curious and strange sensation. To all intents and purposes Sophia Maria no longer existed; that battered and torn and disreputable doll in the cupboard could not be the darling whom she had pressed to her heart and loved and worshipped during all the sorrowful days when her mother lay dead in the lodging-house in Bloomsbury.
But although the lump was there, and the sorrow and the dismay there also, Nan’s day was one rush, one continued succession, of excitement; there was literally no time in Mrs. Richmond’s happy house for brooding or grieving.
“I must try and forget Sophia Maria for the present,” thought the child; “there is such a lot to be done! But when I get into bed to-night, oh! won’t I have a good cry?”
She made up her mind also not to tell either Nora or Kitty what had happened to her dear baby.
“As for Jack,” she said to herself, “I shall hate him all the rest of my days.”
But when he came up to her, and sprang with great appreciation into her lap and cuddled down there, and licked her hand with his little red tongue, she found that, far from hating him, she was loving him better and better each moment. At last bedtime came, and Nan as she laid her head on her pillow and said “Good-night” to nurse, who had come in to put out her candle, whispered to herself:
“Now I must have a tremendous cry for my darling Sophia Maria.”
But, behold! the very next instant she was sound asleep. So Maria lay neglected in the cupboard. Some day, of course, Nan would dress her, and make her a pet and an idol once more, but meantime she was too busy.