"That was quite different," he said. "She was a baby and had to be held on. It was the fun of climbing up I cared for."
"She wasn't a baby," I said. "She's nine years old, he said she was—didn't he, mamma?"
"You are mixing two things together," said mamma. "Mr. Cranston was speaking first of his daughter long ago when she was a child, and then he was speaking of her daughter, little Myra Raby, who is now nine years old."
"Why did he say my 'poor' daughter?" I asked.
"Did you not hear the allusion to her death? Mrs. Raby died soon after little Myra was born. Mr. Raby married again—he is a clergyman not very far from Fernley——"
"A clergyman," exclaimed Haddie. He was more worldly-wise than I, thanks to being at school. "A clergyman, and he married a shopkeeper's daughter."
"There are very different kinds of shopkeepers, Haddie," said mamma. "Mr. Cranston is very rich, and his daughter was very well educated and very nice. Still, no doubt Mr. Raby was in a higher position than she, and both Mr. Cranston and his wife are very right-minded people, and never pretend to be more than they are. That is why I was so glad to hear that little Myra is coming to stay with them. I was afraid the second Mrs. Raby might have looked down upon them perhaps."
Haddie said no more about it. And though I listened to what mamma said, I don't think I quite took in the sense of it till a good while afterwards. It has often been like that with me in life. I have a curiously "retentive" memory, as it is called. Words and speeches remain in my mind like unread letters, till some day, quite unexpectedly, something reminds me of them, and I take them out, as it were, and find what they really meant.
But just now my only interest in little Myra Raby's history was a present one.
"Mamma," I said suddenly, "if she is a nice little girl like what her mamma was, mightn't I have her to come and see me and play with me? I have never had any little girl to play with, and it is so dull sometimes—the days that Haddie is late at school and when you are busy. Do say I may have her—I'm sure old Mr. Cranston would let her come, and then I might go and play with her sometimes perhaps. Do you think she will play among the furniture—where the lions are?"