'And better still than brushwood,' I went on, taking no notice of Hoskins's 'kitchen,'—I would much rather have had a gypsy fire with a pot hanging on three iron rods, the way gypsies do, or are supposed to do,—'better than brushwood, fir cones. They do smell so delicious when they are burning. We might make a great heap of them before next winter. It would give the children something to do when they are playing in the wood.'
ORDERING DENZIL ABOUT AS USUAL.
They—the two little ones—were of course in tremendous spirits about the whole thing,—such spirits that they could not even look sad for very long when at last—about three weeks after the days I have just been describing—the sorrowful morning arrived on which dear papa had to leave us. Esmé cried loudly, as was her way; Denzil, more silently and solemnly, as was his; but an hour or two afterwards we heard the little butterfly laughing outside in the garden and ordering Denzil about as usual.
'Never mind,' said mamma, glancing up from the lists of all sorts of things she was already busy at and reading what was in my mind, 'rather let us be glad that the child does not realise it. She is very young; it does not mean that she is heartless,' and mamma herself choked down her tears and turned again to her writing-table.
I too had done my best not to cry, though it was very difficult. I think George and I 'realised' it all—the long, lonely voyage for papa; the risks at sea which are always there; the dangers for his health, for the climate was a bad one, and it was not the safest season by any means. All these, and then the possibility of great disappointment when he got there—of finding that, after all, the discovery of things going wrong had come too late to put them right, and of all that would follow this—the leaving our dear, dear home, not for a few months, or even a year, but for always.
It would not do even to think of it. And I had promised papa to be brave and cheerful.
By this time I must explain that the Hut—from now I must write it with a capital, as mamma did in her letters: 'The Hut, Eastercove' looked quite grand, we thought—was ready for us to move into. Our tenants were expected at the house in a week or ten days, and we were now to leave it as soon as we could.
A great part of the arranging, carting down furniture, and so on had been done, but it had been thought better to put off our actually taking up our quarters in our quaint new home till after papa had gone. He said it would have worried him rather if we had left sooner, but I know the truth was, that he thought the having to be very busy, in a bustle in fact, at once on his going, would be the best for us all—mamma especially.