'I was doing no harm,' said Anne; 'I was only looking at the way the pins fasten in to that big diamond thing. It's quite right, Jack, you needn't fuss. Rowley's putting them all away.'
So I didn't say any more.
And to-morrow was the Drawing-room day.
Mother looked beautiful, as I said. We watched her start with the two others, cousin Dorothea and Miss Merthyr. It was rather a cold day; they took lots of warm cloaks in the carriage. I remember hearing Judy—we call her Judy now—say,
'You must take plenty of wraps, Mrs. Warwick,'—that's mother. 'My aunt made me bring a fur cape that I thought I should not wear again this year; it would never do for you to catch cold.'
Mums does look rather delicate, but she isn't delicate really. She's never ill. But Judith looked at her so nicely when she said that about not catching cold, that the cross look went quite out of her face, and I saw it was only something about her eyebrows. And I began to think she must be rather nice.
But we didn't see her again. She did not get out of the carriage when they came back in the afternoon, but went straight home to her own house. Somebody of hers was ill there. Cousin Dorothea came back with mother, and three other ladies in trains came too, so there was rather a good show.
And everybody was laughing and talking, and we'd all had two or three little teas and several ices, and it was all very jolly when a dreadful thing happened.
I was standing by mother. I had brought her a cup of tea from the end drawing-room where Rowley and the others were pouring it out, and she was just drinking it, when I happened to look up at her head.
'Mums,' I said, 'why have you taken out gran's diamond thing? It looked so nice.'