I felt my cheeks get very red, but I didn't speak.
"Didn't you promise to trust me last night?" she said again.
"Yes, Miss Goldy-hair, but I didn't know that you'd come to see us because Tom was ill. You said you'd come to fetch us to have dinner and tea with you, but I didn't know you'd come when you heard Tom couldn't go out."
"Why, don't you need me all the more because you can't go out?" she said brightly. "I'm going to stay a good while with you, and I have brought some little things to please you."
She turned to the basket which Racey had never taken his eyes off. We all stood round her, gazing eagerly. There were all sorts of things to please us—oranges, and a few grapes, and actually a little shape of jelly and some awfully nice funny biscuits. Then there were a few books, and two or three little dolls without any clothes on, and a little packet of pieces of silk and nice stuffs to dress them with, and a roll of beautiful coloured paper, and some canvas with patterns marked on it, and bright-coloured wools.
"I've brought you some things to amuse you," said Miss Goldy-hair, "for Tom can't go out, and it's a very cold, wet day, not fit for Audrey or Racey to go out either. And as your tutor won't be coming as Tom's ill, it would be a very long day for you all alone, wouldn't it?"
Then she went on to explain to us what she meant us to do with the things she had brought. Some of them were the same that the children she had told us about had to amuse them when they were ill, and she let Tom and Racey choose a canvas pattern each, and helped them to begin working them with the pretty wools.
"How nice it would be to make something pretty to send to your mother for Christmas! Wouldn't she be surprised?" she said; and Tom was so pleased at the thought that he set to work very hard and tried so much that he soon learnt to do cross-stitch quite well. Racey did a little of his too, but after a while he got tired of it and went back to his horses, and we heard him "gee-up"-ing, and "gee-woh"-ing, and "stand there, will you"-ing in his corner just as usual.
"What a merry little fellow he is," said Miss Goldy-hair, "how well he amuses himself."
"Yes," I said, "he hasn't been near so dull as Tom and me. He was only frightened for fear the new nurse should whip him. But Uncle Geoff has promised she sha'n't, and so now Racey's quite happy and doesn't mind anything. I don't think he minds about mother going away now."