"Go to rest, my Vevette," she said, kissing me as I hung over her. "Have no fears for me. I shall do well. Thank God that you are in safety. Ah, if thy father were but here!" And for the first time, she burst into tears.
"That is well, my love," said my oldest cousin, to whom I looked in anxiety. "These tears will relieve your mother, and she will sleep, and all the better if she knows you are at rest. Go, my child."
I was used to obey, and my kind motherly cousin inspired confidence by her very tone. I undressed, put on the dry warm flannels provided for me, and crept into the bed, on which Blanchon was already established.
Oh, the delicious depths of that English bed! I thought I should lie awake to listen to the sounds from the next room, but I was worn-out, and fell asleep before my head was fairly on the pillow.
[CHAPTER IX.]
IN JERSEY.
I SLEPT till afternoon, and when I waked I could not at first tell where I was, everything about me was so utterly different from anything I had been used to. My bed was surrounded by light curtains of blue and white checked linen, and through these at the foot I could see that the hangings of the latticed window were of the same. The bed was covered with a white spread worked with a curious pattern in colored crewels. Everything was very quiet, but I could hear the distant hum of a spinning-wheel, and the singing of a robin outside my window.
I lay quietly a long time, half asleep and dreaming, half bewildered, feeling as if I had died and wakened into a new world, of which all I knew was that it was safe and friendly. At last I raised myself, put aside the curtain, and looked out.