Ah, with what joy on that happy morning Dora had galloped home to give the account to her mother! The sixpence had gone to buy the blue ribbon Dora wore among her locks on Sundays; but how the mother had cheered up! She had seemed almost well for half an hour that evening, and Dora had told the tale again and again.
"I was a-walkin' along, like this here, not a thinkin' a mite o' my ringolets, an' I see th' woman on th' horse keep a-smilin'. So I made my manners, an' she pulled up 'r horse. 'Whu's little gal be yu?' she say; 'an' where did yu git yer lovely hair?'"
Her mother had eaten two bits of bread-and-butter, that evening, and had drunk the tea Dora all alone had made her. How happy it had been! Perhaps it would all happen again.
Morning school over, she was putting on her hat among a struggling mass of children anxious to get into the open, where there was a great blue vault to shout under, and stones to shy, when the schoolmistress from the empty class-room called her back. The woman stood by her silently for a minute, one hand on the child's shoulder, the other moving thoughtfully over the shining fell of hair.
"Don't shout and play with the others to-day, Dora," she said at length. "Wait till they clear off, and then go right home."
"Yes, tacher."
The schoolmistress waited for another minute, smoothing the curls.
"You're only right a little girl, Dora, but you're the only one. You must try to be good, and look after poor little Jack and Jim, and your father—and be a comfort."
"Yes, tacher." Dora took courage beneath the caressing hand: "I like to be a comfit to mother best," she vouchsafed, brightly daring.
"But your mother——" the governess said, then stopped and turned away her head; she could not bring herself to tell the child the news of the mother she had heard that morning, since school began.