"Forgive him for what!"
"Oh, altogether," returned Caroline with a gesture of impatience. "There was the leaving Hallingham, and Sara's money, and other things."
"Where is Mark?" continued Dick.
"He won't be long. He strolls out a little after dark, but he does not care to venture abroad by daylight. And so, you are up for the holidays, I suppose?"
Dick nodded. "Aunt Bett wouldn't have us at midsummer. But Leo broke his arm, and he wasn't strong, and she sent for him; and then she said I might come up for Christmas, and we could both go back to school together. I say, wasn't it unkind of her not to have us in the summer? She said her house was small. Summer holidays are jollier than winter ones, especially when they don't let you go on the ice."
Did a remembrance cross Caroline of somebody else who would not have them in the summer?--whose house was not small? Probably not. Caroline had room only for her own griefs. Since the falling of the blow she had existed in a state of bewilderment. The change was so great, the order of things so completely altered, that at times she believed she must be in a prolonged dream, and should shortly wake up to reality. As one who has suddenly put ashore in a foreign country, where the land, the customs, the people, and the tongue, are all strange to him, and he can only accept them passively, yielding himself perforce to the necessity of circumstances, so it was with Caroline Cray. Believe me, I am telling you no untrue story.
"How you cough?" exclaimed Dick, as she was interrupted by a heavy fit of coughing, not for the first time.
"I caught a bad cold. It was very bad for a day or two, and I lay in bed. O Dick! I wonder if I shall ever have a bedroom again!"
"Couldn't you have a bedroom as well as this room?" sensibly answered Dick.
"There was only this room to let when we came here, and we thought it would do. It's tolerably good-looking you see, and we are more to ourselves. Every week, too, we are hoping to leave it."