“I don’t want Emma. I want mamma, and nursie and Dolly,” said Mary.
She thought her papa was rather “c’oss,” and she was not used to his being the least cross. And she was unhappy about baby; and deep down in her heart was a sort of fear she tried not to think about. Mary had never been so unhappy in all her life before.
The fear was not in her heart only. Leigh and Artie were feeling just the same. At first when they found themselves alone in the study they all three tried to pretend there was nothing the matter. They hid away the fear, and covered it up, and told it to go to sleep. But fears like that are very troublesome. They won’t go to sleep; just as we think we have got them safely shut in and all seems still, up they jump again, and there they are knocking at the door, not only of our hearts, but of our consciences.
“You have done wrong,” they say, “and wrongdoing brings trouble.”
And after a while the two little brothers and their sister left off pretending. They sat down close together on the hearthrug and looked at each other.
“Leigh,” said Artie, in a strange hushed sort of voice, “do you think Baby Dolly’s very ill?”
Mary did not speak; but she looked up in Leigh’s face, so that he turned his head away.
“How should I know?” he said roughly.
“You heard as much as I did. Babies are often ill.”
But both the others knew quite well that he was just as unhappy as they were.