Pierson smiled, but shook her head. She was at no time of a very sanguine or hopeful disposition.
"It would be nice," she said, "too nice to come true, I'm afraid. I would like to show you all to mother. Poor mother, she's counting the days till I come—she's very frail now, and she's been so long alone since Joseph went to America. But it's getting late, my dears. I must put you to bed, or we'll have Mrs. Partridge up to know what we're about."
"Horrid old thing!" I said. And when Pierson undressed us, and had tucked us all in comfortably, we kissed her, and repeated how much we wished that we were going to live in the pretty village of Cray with her, instead of staying in this gloomy London, with Mrs. Partridge.
I have often thought since, how queer it was that Pierson should have been so very nice that last night, and from that what a great lot of things have come! You will see what I mean as I go on. I can't help thinking—this is quite a different thought, nothing to do with the other—that without knowing it people do sometimes know what is going to happen before it does. It seemed like that that night, for I had never known Pierson quite so nice as she was then.
Late that evening—it seemed to me the middle of the night, but it couldn't really have been more than nine or ten—I was half wakened up by sounds in the day nursery next door. I heard one or two people talking, and a low sound, as if some one were crying, but I was so sleepy that I couldn't make up my mind to wake up to hear more, but for long after that it seemed to me I heard moving about, and a sort of bustle going on. Only it was all faint and confused— I dreamt, or thought I dreamt, that some one stood by the side of my bed crying, but when I half opened my eyes, there was no one to be seen by the tiny light of the little night lamp that mother always let us burn in our room. By the next morning I had forgotten all I had heard, and very likely if I had never had any explanation of it, it would not have come into my mind again.
But the explanation came only too soon. We woke early that morning—we generally did—but we were used to lie still till Pierson came to us. But she had been so kind the night before that we felt bolder than usual, and after having talked in a whisper to each other for some time, and hearing no sound whatever from her room, we decided that she must have overslept herself and that she would not be vexed if we woke her. So "Pierson! Pierson!!" we called out, softly at first, then louder. But there was no answer, so Tom, whose cot was nearest the door, jumped up and ran to her room. In a moment he was back again—his face looking quite queer.
"What is the matter, Tom?" I exclaimed.
"She's not there," he cried, "and she's not been there all night. Her bed isn't unmade."
I sat up in alarm.
"Oh dear!" I said. "I do believe she's gone away, and that was the noise I heard. Oh I do believe that horrid Mrs. Partridge has made Uncle send her away."