“Mind, Eliza, you must not say a word to any one. I should get into no end of a row.”
“You were always generous, Master Johnny. Even when a baby——”
“Never mind that. It is not I who am generous now. The silver was given me for you by some one else; I am cleared out, myself. Where’s Dicky?”
“He’s upstairs in his bed, sir: too stiff to move. Mr. Cole, too, said he might as well lie there to-day. Would you like to go up and see him?”
As I ran up the staircase, open from the room, a vision of her wan face followed me—of the catching sob again—of the smooth brown hair which she was pressing from her temples. We have heard of a peck of troubles: she seemed to have a bushel of them.
Dicky was a sight, as far as variety of colours went. There was no mistake about his stiffness.
“It won’t last long, Dick; and then you’ll be as well as ever.”
Dick’s grey eyes—they were just like his mother’s—looked up at mine. I thought he was going to cry.
“There. You will never take anything again, will you?”
Dick shook his head as emphatically as his starched condition allowed. “Father says as he’d kill me the next time if I did.”