'You won't let her go back there?' he exclaimed. 'I'm sure she'll run away again if you do.'
It sounded rather rude, but Mrs. Wylie knew that he did not mean it for rudeness. She only looked at him gravely.
'I am very anxious to see how your little friend is to-morrow morning,' she replied. 'I earnestly hope she has not caught any serious cold.'
The way she said it frightened me a little somehow, though we children often caught cold and didn't think much about it. But then we were all strong. None of us ever coughed the way Margaret used to about that time, except when we had hooping-cough, and it wasn't that that she had got, I knew.
'You don't think she is going to be badly ill?' I said, feeling as if it would be all my fault if she was.
Mrs. Wylie only repeated that she hoped not.
We couldn't do much in the way of dressing or tidying ourselves up, as we had nothing with us, not even a red bundle. We could only wash our faces and hands, which were black with the fog, so having them clean was an improvement. And there was a very pretty brush and comb put out for us—Beryl's own. I think it was awfully good of her to lend us her nice things like that. I don't believe Blanchie would have done it, though I daresay mamma would. So we made ourselves as decent-looking as we could, and our collars didn't look as bad that evening as in the daylight the next morning.
And then Beryl put her head in at the door and told us to come down to the drawing-room, where her father was.
'He is not able to go up and down stairs just now,' she said. 'His rheumatism is very bad. So he stays in the drawing-room, and we dine earlier than usual for his sake—at seven.'
She went on talking, partly to make us more comfortable, for I knew we were both looking very shy. And just outside the drawing-room door she smiled and said, 'Don't be frightened of him, he is the kindest person in the world.'