“It was Latin,” said Nello; “Mr. Pen said so. He said girls didn’t want Latin. Girls learn to dance and sing; but I—and Johnnie—— ”
“Will Mr. Pen teach me to dance—and sing, Mary?” said Lilias, with a grave face.
“And me, I wrote a copy,” said Nello, indifferent to the interruption; “look!” and he held up fingers covered with ink. “You cannot read it yet, but you will soon be able to read it, Mr. Pen says. And then I will write you a letter, Mary.”
“It would be better to write letters to some one far off,” said Lilias, half scornful of his want of information. “You can talk to Mary, Nello. It is to far-off people that one makes letters.”
“We have nobody that is far off,” said Nello, shaking his head with the sudden consciousness of a want not hitherto realized. “Then I need not write copies any more.”
“Your father is far off, Nello,” said Mary; “your poor papa, who never hears any news of you. Some time I hope you will be able to write to him, and ask him to come home.”
“Oh,” cried Lilias, “you need not be sorry about that, Mary. He will come home. Some day, in a moment when you are thinking of nothing, there will be a step on the stair, and Martuccia will give a shriek; and it will be as if the sun came shining out, and it will be papa! He is always like that—but you never know when he will come.”
Mary’s eyes filled in spite of herself. What long, long years it was that she had thought but little of John! and yet there suddenly seemed to come before her a vision of his arrival from school or from college, all smiles and, making the old roof ring with his shout of pleasure. Was it possible that this would happen over again—that he would come in a moment, as his little daughter said? But Lilias did not know all the difficulties, nor the one great obstacle that stood in John’s way, and which perhaps he might never get over. She forgot herself in these thoughts, and did not perceive that Lilias was gazing wistfully at her, endeavouring with all her childish might to penetrate her mind and know the occasion of these tears. Mary was recalled to herself by feeling the child’s arm steal round her, and the soft touch of a little hand and handkerchief upon her wet eyes. “You are crying,” said Lilias. “Mary, is it for papa?—why should you cry for papa?”
“My darling, we don’t know where he is, nor anything about him—”
“That does not matter,” said Lilias, winking rapidly to throw off the sympathetic tears which had gathered in her own eyes; “he is always like that. We never knew where he was; but just when he could, just when it was possible, he came home. We never could tell when it would be—it might be any day. Some time when we are forgetting and not expecting him. Ah——!” cried the child, with a ring of wonder in the sudden exclamation. The hall-door was open as usual, and on the road was a distant figure just visible which drew from Lilias this sudden cry. She ran to the door, clutching her brother—“Come, Nello, Nello!” and rushed forth. Mary sat still, thinking her heart had stopped in her breast—or was it not rather suffocating her by the wildness of its beating? She sat immovable, watching the little pair at the door. Could it be that John had come home? John! he who would be the most welcome yet the most impossible of visitors; he who had a right to everything, yet dared not be seen in the old house. She sat and trembled, not daring to look out, already planning what she could do, what was to be done.