“She would have been dreadfully disappointed not to get it,” said he again. “Though all the same,” he went on thinking to himself, “it is a little provoking to think that she would have got it any way, and that I went and caught this horrible cold for nothing. Only I would never have known how good Claudia was but for all that, and perhaps she would still have tried for the prize. I wish she would write to me again! I’m sure she would if she knew how tired I am of being ill, and of everything.”—“Mamma,” he went on again aloud, “doesn’t this winter seem dreadfully long, and it’s only a fortnight and four days past Christmas? Charlotte and the boys only began lessons again three days ago. I wish I could go back to school too, mamma. Oh, I do wish the summer would come. I think I shouldn’t care to live if it was to be always winter.”
His words startled his mother. She got up and came over to him.
“What makes you so gloomy, my old Jerry?” she said; “it isn’t like you.”
“I don’t mean to be naughty and impatient, mamma,” he said; “it’s just that I’m so tired—so tired of the cold, and the darkness, and the grimness,” and his eyes turned with almost a shudder from the window towards which they had glanced instinctively. He knew so well what the prospect outside must be; for it was raining heavily, one of Wortherham’s very ugliest days. “Oh, how I should like just to see and feel the sun, and the blue sky above! I feel as if I could drink the sunshine, mamma; I am so thirsty for it.”
Mrs Waldron sighed a little.
“It is as if he felt the want of it by instinct,” she said to herself. “There are places in the world where there is sunshine even at this season, my Jerry,” she said aloud. “I wish I could send you to one of them.”
Jerry’s eyes sparkled.
“Yes, wouldn’t it be lovely?” he exclaimed. “I wonder if it is to one of those places that they are going;” he added.
“Who?” asked his mother.
“The girl at Silverthorns—Miss Meredon, and old Lady Mildred. She said in her last letter, you know, mamma, that perhaps they were going to France. How nice it would be if we could all go! Sometimes one can’t help wishing to be rich, mamma.”