'It is about Mrs. Vandeleur. Do you know, my dear Miss Helena, that it has just been touch and go these last days, if she was to live or die?'
'Oh, Kezia!' I exclaimed; 'no, I didn't know it was as bad as that,' and the tears—unselfish, unbitter tears this time—rushed into my eyes as I remembered the sweet white face that I had seen in grandmamma's room, and the gentle voice that had tried to say something kind and loving to me. 'Oh, Kezia, I wish I had known. Do you think it will have hurt her, my peeping into the room yesterday?' for I had told my old nurse everything.
She shook her head.
'No, my dear, I don't think so. She is going to get really better now, they feel sure—as sure as it is ever right to feel about such things, I mean. Only yesterday morning I had a letter from your grandmamma, saying so. She meant to tell you soon, all about the great anxiety there had been—once it was over—she had been afraid of grieving and alarming you. So, dear Miss Helena, if you had just been patient a little longer——'
My tears were dropping fast now, but still I was not quite softened.
'All the same, Kezia,' I said, 'they meant to send me to school.'
'Well, my dear, if they had, it might have been really for your happiness. You would have been sent nowhere that was not as good and nice a school as could be. And, of course, though Mrs. Vandeleur has turned the corner in a wonderful way, she will be delicate for long—perhaps never quite strong, and the life is lonely for you.'
'I wouldn't mind,' I said, for the sight of sweet Cousin Agnes had made me feel as if I would do anything for her. 'I wouldn't mind, if grandmamma trusted me, and if I could feel she loved me as much as she used. I would do my lessons alone, or go to a day-school or anything, if only I felt happy again with grandmamma.'
'My dearie, there is no need for you to feel anything else.'
'Oh yes—there is now, even if there wasn't before,' I said, miserably. 'Think of what I have done. Even if grandmamma forgave me for coming away here, Cousin Cosmo would not—he is so stern, Kezia. He really is—you know Harry and Lindsay thought so—Gerard Nestor told us, and though Harry won't speak against him, I can see he doesn't care for him.'