'As often as her mother can spare her, of course,' Mrs. Vane answered.
Then came Biddy. She was not crying, though she winked her eyes a good deal.
'Mamma, I'll try to be good,' she said bluntly; 'and if papa gets quite well again'—here her voice broke. 'Oh, mamma, if only it was the day for you and papa to come back, and him quite, quite well. Mamma, I think I'd never be naughty again.'
This was a great, great deal from Biddy!
That day did come, but a good many other days had to pass before it came, and some of these were rather sad and anxious ones. For the first letters from abroad were not as cheerful as Mrs. Vane would have liked to make them for the little party so eagerly awaiting them at Seacove Rectory. Mr. Vane was very tired by the journey, and had it not been for the kindness of Madame d'Ermont, who would not hear of them staying anywhere but in her house, at any rate till he grew stronger, Mrs. Vane said she felt as if she would have lost heart altogether. But after a little things brightened up again. 'Papa really seems to get stronger every day,' she wrote; and on Bridget's birthday morning there came a letter from papa himself, all scented with the sweet violets he had slipped into it—for that was long before the days of parcel posts, by which flowers reach us from the south of France and Italy as fresh as if we had just gathered them in our own gardens—and telling of quite a long walk he had been able to take without feeling too tired. The letter ended up with wishing Biddy a truly happy birthday, and hopes that it might be bright and sunny at Seacove. 'I only wish I could pack up some of the sunshine here to send you,' wrote Mr. Vane, 'for we have enough and to spare of it. But after all, the best sunshine of all is that of happy and contented and loving hearts—is it not, my Biddy?'
There was sunshine of both kinds that day at the Rectory. Celestina came early, almost immediately after breakfast indeed, so as to be present at the great 'surprise.' She was to spend the whole day for once with her friends, which was a great treat, though she saw them regularly once or twice a week when she came to have a French lesson from Miss Millet. Mrs. Vane had arranged this before she left, for little Miss Neale, who now gave Celestina lessons every day at Pier Street, could not teach French, and it was a great pleasure, and help too, to Biddy to have industrious, attentive Celestina still her companion in something.
But to-day, of course, there was no question of lessons of any kind.
They had breakfast extra early, which some children I know, would not, I fear, consider a treat. Indeed, I once heard of some young people, scarcely to be called children, and by no means overworked young people either, who chose for a holiday pleasure that they should stay in bed for breakfast, and not get up till the middle of the day, which, I must say, I did not at all admire. The great reason for the extra early breakfast on Biddy's birthday was not that the Vane children were so very fond of being up betimes, but that Rough wanted to be there at the great scene, and with some difficulty he had got an hour's 'grace' from school that morning.
To begin at the beginning—for I know that when I was a child I liked to be told all about everything—the first pleasure of the day, after the reading of papa's nice letter, was the sight of the breakfast-table. Kind Miss Millet and Alie had dressed it up with cowslips after Biddy had gone to bed the night before, for there were cowslips, and very pretty ones, to be had in some woods a mile or two inland from Seacove. And May birthdays always make one think of cowslips.
The breakfast itself was very nice too—extra nice; for there was no bread and milk for once, but only 'grown-up' things—a tempting dish of ham and eggs, and delicious hot rolls and tea-cakes, and strawberry jam and honey to eat with them as a finish up. And besides the letter from papa—which had really come the day before and been kept till this morning, as, in his fear of being too late, Mr. Vane had sent it off rather too soon—there was a neat little packet for Biddy from grandmamma, containing a story-book called The Christmas Stocking, and a lovely scarf worked in all kinds of marvellous Eastern colours, 'making one think of the Arabian nights,' as Alie said, from the Indian cousins. So that it was with a sigh of deep content that Biddy sat down to breakfast, knowing that something still more delightful and wonderful was in store.