Their mother glanced up beseechingly. She was kissing Jasper over and over again, as he clung to her, though with tears in her eyes.
“Dears,” she said, “my head is aching terribly. No, Chrissie, I have not been actually ill, but I have not been able to sleep, and scarcely to eat, since I left you. And poor Daddy, too—when I have taken off my things and rested a little, I will send for you and tell you—” her voice broke.
“I wish you’d tell us now,” said hasty Christabel. “If it’s anything horrid, it’s worse to have to wait.”
But Leila was thoroughly roused out of her dreams for once, by this time.
“Be quiet, Chrissie. It’s very selfish of you, when Mummy is so tired. I wonder—” and she glanced round the schoolroom, where they all were—Miss Earle having left—“I wonder if—” but before she could finish her sentence, Jasper, who had run off suddenly, made his appearance again, very solemn and important, as he was carefully carrying a cup of nice steaming tea.
“Ours was just ready,” he said. “I knew it was, and Nurse brought it to the door for me. Her wants you to take it while it’s quite hot.”
Mrs Fortescue took the cup from the kind little hands and drank it gladly.
“Thank you, darling,” she said, “that has done me good;” but Leila looked rather put out, and murmured something about a “meddlesome brat.”
“I was just going to order it,” she said, but while she had been “thinking,” Jasper had been “acting!”
Their mother got up from her seat.