And the days passed very peacefully. For the weather on the whole was fine, and Jasper was able to be out a great deal, though principally in a bath-chair, as his poor little legs were still too weak to allow of his walking for more than a very short time.
The bath-chair man was a relation of their landlady; a good careful old fellow, and more than once, when Mrs Fortescue was very tired—walking beside a bath-chair is harder exercise than it looks!—or had many letters to write, she let Jasper go out alone in his carriage, well wrapt up and quite content in his human horse’s company. Thus it happened one day when they had been more than a week at Seabay. It was a very warm afternoon for April, and Mrs Fortescue told old Evans that he might draw up on the terrace facing the sea, for part of the time, and let Jasper watch the people walking about and the children on donkeys or digging on the sands, for already, on a very fine day like this, the regular summer customs were beginning.
The old man did as he was told, and Jasper sat in his nest, warm and comfortable and perfectly content. Suddenly he heard a small voice beside him, and glancing round, he saw a very little girl gazing up at him with great interest, not unmingled with awe. She was a pretty little creature, charmingly dressed in white, looking about four years old, and she seemed to be quite alone. It was not in our little boy’s nature not to smile at her, and then she took courage.
“Is you hurted your foots?” she said; “can’t you walk or ’tand?”
“No,” said Jasper, “it’s not my feet. I’ve been ill and my legs gets tired if I walk much.”
“Poor ’ittle boy!” she said pityingly. “Was it werry sore to be ill? I’d like to kiss you, to make it better?” and she came close to the bath-chair, raising herself on tip-toe with the evident intention of kissing him. But a sudden remembrance flashed into Jasper’s mind.
“No, darlin’,” he said in great distress, “no, no. I were forgettin’. You mustn’t come near me. You mustn’t kiss me. Oh, I can’t explain. She wouldn’t understand. Is there nobody wif you—not your nurse or nobody?” he cried, on the point of tears by this time.
“Yeth, there’s Gran,” the baby was beginning, when another voice came from behind the chair, the new-comer having approached from that side.
“Why, what’s the matter, Lily?” it said; “you’ve not been teasing this young gentleman, I hope?” for Jasper’s distress was too plain to be unnoticed. “She is sometimes a little too friendly,” he went on, “though she means well, don’t you, my pet?”