It was not even that. When I opened the door, Miss Bess, who was standing by her sister—Miss Lally still roaring, though not quite so loudly—looked up quietly.
'I've been telling her stories, nurse,' she said. 'But she doesn't like them at all.'
Miss Lally ran to me sobbing. I couldn't but feel sorry for her, as she clung to me, and yet I was provoked, thinking it really too bad to have had such a fright for nothing at all.
'Queen has been telling me such howid things,' she said among her tears, as she calmed down a little. 'She said it was going to be such a pretty story and it was all about a little girl, who wasn't a little girl, weally. They tied her sleeves with green ribbons, afore she was christened, and so the naughty fairies stealed her away and left a howid squealing pertence little girl instead. And it was just, just like me, and, Queen says, they did tie me in green ribbons. She knows they did, she can 'amember;' and here her cries began again. 'And Queen says 'praps I'll never come right again, and I can't bear to be a pertence little girl. Queen told it me once before, but I'd forgot, and now it's all come back.'
She buried her face on my shoulder. I had sat down and taken her on my knees, and I could feel her all shaking and quivering, though through it all she still clutched her knitting and the four needles.
'Miss Bess,' I said, in a voice I don't think I had yet used since I had been with them, 'I am surprised at you! Come away with me, my dear,' I said to Miss Lally. 'Come into the other room. Miss Bess will stay here till such time as she can promise to behave better, both to you and Master Francis.'
Miss Bess had turned away when I began to speak, and I think she had felt ashamed. But my word about Master Francis had been a mistake.
'You needn't scold me about spilling the ink on Francis's book!' she said angrily. 'You know that was an accident.'
'There's accidents and accidents,' I replied, which I know wasn't wise; but the child had tried my temper too, I won't deny.
I took Miss Lally into a corner of the day nursery and talked to her in a low voice, not to disturb Master Francis, who was still busy writing.