I flew across the room to her.
'Granny,' I said, 'dear granny, what is it? Are you ill—is anything the matter?'
Just at first, I think, I forgot about the letter lying on her lap—but before she spoke she touched it with her fingers.
'I am only a little startled, dear child,' she said, 'startled and——' I could not catch the other word she said, she spoke it so softly, but I think it was 'thankful.' 'No, there is nothing wrong, but you will understand my feeling rather upset when I tell you that this letter is from Cosmo—you know whom I mean, Helena, Cosmo Vandeleur, my nephew, who has not written to me all these years.'
At once I was full of interest, not unmixed—and I think it was natural—with some indignation.
'So he is alive and well, I suppose?' I said, rather bitterly. 'Well, granny, I hope you will not trouble about him any more. He must be a horrid man, after all your kindness to him when he was a boy, never to have written or seemed to care if you were alive or dead.'
'No, dear,' said grandmamma, whose colour was returning, though her voice still sounded weak and tremulous—'no, dear. You must not think of him in that way. Careless he has certainly been, but he has not lost his affection for me. I will explain it all to you soon, but I must think it over first. I feel still so upset, I can scarcely take it in.'
She stopped, and her breath seemed to come in gasps. I was not a stupid child, and I had plenty of common sense.
'Granny, dear,' I said, 'don't try to talk any more just now. I will call Kezia, and she must give you some water, or tea, or something. And I won't call Mr. Vandeleur horrid if it vexes you.'
Kezia knew how to take care of grandmamma, though it was very, very seldom she was ever faint or nervous or anything of that kind.