“My little Betty, so early,” she said, and kissed the girl, and then looked at her again, as if in expectation of something; but as Betty could not think of anything that Miss Lance would be expecting from her, she remained unconscious of any special meaning in this look.
“Yes, I am early,” she said; “it is because I have something to tell you, and something to ask of you, too.”
“Tell, my dear little girl, and ask. You may be sure I shall be at your service. But what is this in your hand—a note for me?”
“Yes, it is a note for you, but may I tell you first what it is about?” Betty went on quickly with her story, though Miss Lance, without waiting for it, took the note and opened it. “Miss Lance, Charlie is found; he has been very ill, and he wants to see you.”
“To see me?” Miss Lance looked with eyes of sympathy, yet great innocence, as if at an impossible proposal, at the breathless girl so anxious to get it out. “But, Betty, if he is with your friends, the Mackinnons, in Scotland—?”
“Oh, Miss Lance, I told you he was not there, don’t you remember? He has never been anywhere all this time. He has had typhoid fever, and on Thursday Bee was sent for, and found him still ill, but mending. And when he heard you were in town he would give her no peace till she wrote and asked you to come and see him. And she did not know your address so she wrote to me. I went to tell papa first, and then I came on here. Oh, will you come and see Charlie? Bee said he wanted to get into a hansom and come to you as soon as he heard you were here.”
“What induced them to talk of me, and why did she tell him I was here?” Miss Lance cried, with a momentary cloud upon her face, such as Betty had never seen there before. She sat down suddenly in a chair, with a pat of her foot upon the carpet, which was almost a stamp of impatience, and then she read Colonel Kingsward’s note for the second time, with her brows drawn together and a blackness about her eyes which filled Betty with alarm and dismay. She looked up, however, next minute with her countenance cleared. “Your father says I am to use my own discretion,” she said, with a half laugh; “that is not much help to me, is it, in deciding what is best to do? So he has been ill—and not in Scotland at all?”
“I told you he was not in Scotland,” cried Betty, a little impatient in her turn. “Oh, Miss Lance, he has been ill, he is still ill, and won’t you come and see him when he wants you so? Oh, come and see him, please! He looks so ill and wretched, Bee says, and weak, and cannot get back his strength; and he thinks if he could see you——”
“Poor boy—silly boy!” said Miss Lance; “why does he think it will do him good to see me? I doubt if it would do him any good; and your father says I am to use my discretion. I would do anything for any of you, Betty, but perhaps I should do him harm instead of good. Have you got your sister’s letter?”
“I left it with papa—that is, he threw it into the waste paper basket,” said the too truthful Betty, growing red.