Lilias looked after her with wondering, disturbed eyes. What a strange old woman she was! How strange that she should behave so! and yet Lilias did not attempt to inquire why. Grown-up people in her experience did a great many strange things. It was of no use trying to fathom what they meant, and this strange old person was only a little more strange than the rest, and startling to the calm little being who had grown in the midst of family troubles and mysteries without divining any of them. Strangely enough, the old woman felt equally independent of any necessity for explanation. It seemed so clear in her mind that everybody must know the past and understand her claims, whatever they were. She had no more idea of the tranquillity of innocent ignorance in Lilias’s mind than the little girl had of the mysteries of her experience. Lilias watched her going away through the high columns of the trees with great wonder yet respect, and it was not till she had disappeared that the little girl went on after Nello. Nello would have been frightened by that curious apparition. He would have cried perhaps, and struggled, and would not have said Granny. Perhaps he would have angered her. What a good thing that Nello had not been here!
PART IV.
CHAPTER XIII.
FAMILY CARES.
Lilias did not say much about the adventure in the wood, nothing at all indeed to Mary or any one in authority; nor did it dwell in her mind as a thing of much importance. The kind of things that strike a child’s mind as wonderful are not always those which would most impress an older person. There were many things at Penninghame very curious and strange to the little girl. The big chimneys of the old house, for instance, the sun-dial in the old garden, and on a lower level the way in which Cook’s cap kept on, which seemed to Lilias miraculous, no means of securing it being visible. She pondered much on these things, trying to arrive at feasible theories in respect to them, but there was no theory required about the other very natural incident. That an old woman should meet her in the woods, and kiss her, and ask to be called granny, and cry over her,—there was nothing wonderful in that; and indeed if, as she already suspected, it was no old woman at all, but a fairy, such as those in the story-books, who would probably appear again and set her tasks to do, much more difficult than calling her granny, and end by transforming herself into a beautiful lady—this would still remain quite comprehensible, not by any means unparalleled in the experience of one who had already mastered a great deal of literature treating of such subjects. She was interested but not surprised, for was it not always to a child or children by themselves in a wood that fairies did speak? She told Nello about the meeting, who was not surprised any more than she was; for though he was not very fond of reading himself, he had shared all his sister’s, having had true histories of fairies read to him almost ever since he could recollect anything. He made some cynical remarks prompted by his manhood, but it was like much manly cynicism, only from the lips, no deeper. “I thought fairies were all dead,” he said.
“Oh, Nello; when you know they are spirits and never die! they are hundreds and hundreds of years older than we are, but they never die; and it is always children that see them. I thought she would tell us to do something—— ”
“I would not do something,” said Nello; “I would say, ‘Old woman, do it yourself.’”
“And do you know what would happen then?” said Lilias, severely; “whenever you opened your mouth, a toad or a frog would drop out of it.”
“I should not mind; how funny it would be! how the people would be surprised.”
“They would be frightened—fancy! every word you said; till all round there would be things creeping and creeping and crawling all over you; slimy cold things that would make people shiver and shriek. Oh!” said Lilias recoiling and putting up her hands, as if to put him away; “the frogs! squatting and jumping all over the floor.”
At this lively realization of his problematical punishment, Nello himself grew pale, and nervously looked about him. “I would kill her!” he cried, furiously; “what right would she have to do that to me?”