“Oh! no, dear aunt. I am sure it is nothing that signifies,” replied Geneviève. “I often have a little headache for a few hours; but a little rest, and I am all right again.”
“If it were you Cicely,” observed her mother, “I should be more alarmed, for I never feel sure where you have been. There is no fever at Notcotts, I hope? You were there to-day?”
“Yes,” replied Cicely, “but I ran no risk. The child I told you about died of consumption. I am sure there is no infectious illness about just now. Mother dear,” she added appealingly, “you know you can trust me. I would not do anything foolish.”
“I am not sure, my dear. Since that Mr. Hayle has been here you seem to me to be always running about among sick people. And one never knows what risk one may run.”
“Mr. Hayle is very careful I assure you, mother,” replied Cicely. “Indeed,” she went on laughingly, “I think he would be very sorry to put me in the way of risk, for he has designs upon me. He thinks that under proper influence and direction I might be trained into a very useful “sister.”
“Cicely!” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn aghast, “how can you joke about such things? If I thought Mr. Hayle that sort of a high-church clergyman, I would be very sorry to admit him to our acquaintance. One might just as well invite a Jesuit to one’s house.”
Cicely laughed again, but Mrs. Methvyn was really uneasy. There were points on which she did not thoroughly understand her daughter. She was in many ways unlike other girls, and Mrs. Methvyn deprecated eccentricity. She never felt sure of Cicely’s not taking up some crotchet, and, sweet and gentle though the girl was, a crotchet once “taken up” by her, would be, her mother felt instinctively, by no means easy to dislodge. Cicely’s laugh to some extent reassured her.
“You are joking, I know, my dear,” she said philosophically, “but there are some subjects I do not like joking upon. I have known too many sad realities. Do you not remember Evelyn Parry? Why she actually ran away from home to become a nun. It was dreadful!”
“But nuns and sisters are quite different institutions, mother dear, and Evelyn Parry was not quite ‘right’ in her head; she was always doing silly things. You don’t think I am like her, do you? You certainly need not fear my ever running away from you for anything or anybody; our only trouble is that you want me to run away and I won’t.”
Geneviève had left the room by this time, and Cicely was in her favourite posture, kneeling on the ground beside her mother, her fair head resting on Mrs. Methvyn’s knees.