“No. The baby is pretty well, and Polly, who sprained her foot running after me, is pretty well; but it’s—it’s Dr. Maybright—the best man I ever met—a man who could have helped me and made me a—a good girl—he’s very, very ill, and they think he may die. He wasn’t strong, and he was out all night looking for baby and me, and he got a bad chill, and he—he may be dead now. It was my doing; Fly told me so.”
Flower laid her head on the table; her long sustained fortitude gave way; she sobbed violently.
Her tears stained Mrs. Cameron’s snowy table-linen; her head was pressed down on her hands; her face was hidden. She was impervious in her woe to any angry words or to the furious barking of a small dog.
At last a succession of violent shakes recalled her to herself.
“Will you sit up?—spoiling my damask and shedding tears into the excellent coffee I have made for you. Ah, that’s better; now I can see your face. Don’t you know that you are a very naughty, dangerous sort of girl?”
“Yes, I know that quite well. Mother always said that if I didn’t check my passion I’d do great mischief some day.”
“And right she was. I don’t suppose the table-linen will ever get over those coffee stains mixed with tears. Now, have the goodness to tell me, Daisy, or Ivy, or whatever you are called, why you have come to tell this miserable, disgraceful story to me.”
“Fly said they none of them could love me now.”
“I should think not, indeed! No one will love such a naughty girl. What have you come to me for?”
“I thought I could stay with you for a little, until there was another home found for me.”