“No, dear, we wouldn’t let her,” said Alexa, re-assuringly. “We told her you might have to wait at the Edge till Wills came back, it was raining so.”
“That was very good and sensible of you,” said Mary, at which commendation poor Alexa’s white face grew rosy with pleasure.
“But aren’t you coming in to mamma, Mary?” she said, seeing that her sister, after disentangling herself from a mysterious fluffy shawl in which she was wrapped, was turning away to the door.
“Immediately,” said Mary. “I am only running back to the gate with this rug, to return it to the—the person that lent it me, and who drove me to Withenden.”
“All the way? How very good-natured! What a way you have been! And what a lovely rug. Is that Mrs Wills’s? Surely not,” they all said at once. But Mary wisely paid no heed, she ran to the gate and back again almost before she was missed.
“This is your rug, Mr Cheviott,” she said, breathlessly, “and thank you for it so much, and thank you for everything. And papa is already a very little better, they think.”
“I am so glad,” he said, cordially. “But, Miss Western, how exceedingly foolish of you to have taken off the rug and run out again into the cold without it!”
Mary laughed.
“I am very hardy,” she said, as she ran off again. “Good-night, and thank you again.”
But Mr Cheviott stopped her for an instant.