Lilias did not refuse the gift in words. She had no words at her command. But she shut Nancy’s fingers back upon the gold, and, as she did so, she stooped and touched the brown wrinkled hand with her lips.
“Indeed, it is not pride,” she said, at last. “You must not think it’s pride. But I am only a child; and it is my aunt who must accept and thank you for your kindness.”
Nancy’s face was a sight to see. At first she could have been angry; but her look changed and softened strangely at the touch of Lilias’s lips upon her hand.
“My dear,” said she gently, “it’s easy to say ‘my aunt,’ but it is you who have borne the burden for her this while, poor helpless body!”
“Yes,” said Lilias, eagerly. “Just because she is helpless, we must consider her the more; and she might not be pleased at my speaking to you first. But if we really need it, we will come to you; for you are a true friend. And you won’t be angry?” she added, wistfully, as she held out her hand for good-bye.
“Angry with you! My little gentle lammie!”
Her tones, so unlike Nancy’s usually sharp accents, brought back the child’s tears with a rush, and she turned and ran away. Nancy stood watching her as she went over the stepping-stones and up the bank, and she tried to walk quietly on. But as soon as she was out of sight she ran swiftly away, that she might find a hiding-place where she could cry her tears out without danger of being seen.
“It’s the clearing-shower, I think; and I must get it over before I go home. If Archie were to see me crying, I should have to tell him all; and I’m sure I don’t know what would happen then.”
As the thought passed through her mind, a footstep sounded on the rocky pathway, and her heart leaped up at the sound of her brother’s voice. In a moment he was close beside her. She might have touched him with her outstretched hand. But the last drops of the clearing-shower were still falling.
“And I’m not going to spoil his pleasant Sabbath with my tears,” she said to herself. So she lay still on the brown heather, quite unseen in the deepening gloaming.