“Papa!” cried Cicely, in a voice shrill with terror.
He started, the light went out of his face, his eyes grew cloudy and bewildered. “What were you saying, Cicely? I am getting—a little hard of hearing. I don’t think I heard what you said.”
“Come in to supper, papa.”
“Yes, yes; but you need not trouble; there is nothing the matter,” he said, recovering himself. And he went with her and ate something dutifully, not without appetite. Then he returned to his study. When Cicely went to him there to say good-night he was smiling to himself. “I am coming; I am coming,” he said. “No need to tell me twice; I know when I am in good hands.”
“Good night, papa—you are going to bed?—we must be early to-morrow,” said Cicely.
“Yes, early—early,” he said, still smiling. “Directly, Hester—before you have reached the gate——”
“Papa! don’t you know me?” cried Cicely, trembling from head to foot.
Again he turned to her with his old face all lighted up and shining. “Know you! my darling!” he said.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CURATE LEAVES BRENTBURN.
CICELY went to her room that night in a very nervous and disturbed condition. It was her last night, too, in the house in which she had been born; but she had no leisure to think of that, or to indulge in any natural sentiments on the subject. She was very much alarmed about her father, whose looks were so strange, but did not know what to do. That he should take her for her mother was perhaps not wonderful at such a moment of agitation; but it frightened her more than words can say. What could she do? It was night, and there was no one in the house with her but Betsy, who had for hours been buried in deepest slumbers; and even had she been able to send for the doctor, what advance would that have made?—for he was not ill, only strange, and it was so natural that he should be strange;—and the good steady-going country doctor, acquainted with honest practical fevers and rheumatism, what help could he bring to a mind diseased? Cicely had changed her room in her new office of nurse, and now occupied a small inner chamber communicating with that of the two children. She was sitting there pondering and thinking when she heard her father come upstairs. Then he appeared suddenly bending over the children’s little cots. He had a candle in his hand, and stooping feebly, kissed the little boys. He was talking to himself all the time; but she could not make out what he said, except, as he stood looking at the children, “Poor things, poor things! God bless you.” Cicely did not show herself, anxiously as she watched, and he went out again and on to his own room. He was going to bed quietly, and after all it might turn out to be nothing; perhaps he had been dozing when he called her Hester, and was scarcely awake. After this she intended to go to bed herself; for she was sadly worn out with her long day’s work and many cares, and fell dead asleep, as youth unaccustomed to watching ever will do in the face of all trouble. The house was perfectly still so long as she was awake; not a sound disturbed the quiet except the breathing of Harry and Charley, and the tap of the jessamine branches against her windows. There was one last blossom at the end of a branch, late and long after its neighbours, which shed some of its peculiar sweetness through the open window. The relief was so great to hear her father come upstairs, and to know that he was safe in his room, that her previous fright seemed folly. She said her prayers, poor child! in her loneliness, giving tearful thanks for this blessing, and fell asleep without time to think of any bothers or sorrow of her own. Thus sometimes, perhaps, those who have other people to carry on their shoulders avoid occasionally the sharp sting of personal feeling—at least, of all the sentiments which are of a secondary kind.