A PARCEL AND A FRIGHT.
"She ran with wild speed, she rushed in at the door,
She gazed in her terror around."
—SOUTHEY.
But Beata could not look forward to it now. The pleasure seemed to have gone out of everything.
"Nobody loves me now, and nobody trusts me," she said sadly to herself. "And I don't know why it is. I can't think of anything I have done to change them all."
Her letter to her mother was already written and sent before the answer came from Martha. Bee had hurried it a little at the end because she wanted to have an excuse to herself for not telling her mother how unhappy she was about the loss of the necklace.
"If an answer comes from Martha that Fixie had taken it away or put it somewhere, it will be all right again and I shall be quite happy, and then it would have been a pity to write unhappily to poor mother, so far away," she said to herself. And when Martha's letter came and all was not right again, she felt glad that she could not write for another fortnight, and that perhaps by that time she would know better what to say, or that "somehow" things would have grown happier again. For she had promised, "faithfully" promised her mother to tell her truly all that happened, and that if by any chance she was unhappy about anything that she could not speak easily about to Mrs. Vincent,—though Bee's mother had little thought such a thing likely,—she would still write all about it to her own mother.
But a week had already passed since that letter was sent. It was growing time to begin to think about another. And no "somehow" had come to put things right again. Bee sat at the schoolroom window one day after Miss Pink had left, looking out on to the garden, where the borders were bright with the early summer flowers, and everything seemed sunny and happy.
"I wish I was happy too," thought Bee. And she gently stroked Manchon's soft coat, and wondered why the birds outside and the cat inside seemed to have all they wanted, when a little girl like her felt so sad and lonely. Manchon had grown fond of Bee. She was gentle and quiet, and that was what he liked, for he was no longer so young as he had been. And Rosy's pullings and pushings, when she was not in a good humour and fancied he was in her way, tried his nerves very much.
"Manchon," said Bee softly, "you look very wise. Why can't you tell me where Rosy's necklace is?"
Manchon blinked his eyes and purred. But, alas, that was all he could do.