“And they’ll maybe let her sit up to all hours,” Bell proceeded. “You know the way she fastens on a book at bed-time!”
“Well, well!” said he emphatically. “If you’re sure that things are to be so bad as that, we’ll not let her go at all,” and he slyly scanned her countenance to see, as he expected, that she was indignant at the very thought of backing out now that they had gone so far.
“You needn’t start to talk nonsense,” said she; “of course she’s going. But oh, Dan! it’s not the sheets, nor food, nor anything like that, that troubles me; it’s the knowledge that she’ll never be the same wee lass again.”
“Tuts!” said Daniel Dyce, and cleaned some moisture from his spectacles; “you’re putting all the cheerful things I was going to say to you out of my head. I’m off to business; is there anything I can do for you? No. Then, remember, you’re not to stir this week outside the blankets; these are the orders of Dr Brash. I have no doubt Ailie will do very well at the house-keeping,” and he left her with a gleam of mischief in his eye.
The window of the bedroom was a little open; on one of the trees a blackbird sang, and there came in the scent of apple-ringie and a tempting splendour of sun. For twenty minutes the ailing lady tried to content herself with the thought of a household managed by Alison Dyce, and then arose to see if Wully Oliver was not idling in the garden. She saw him sitting on his barrow-trams, while Ailie walked among the dahlias, and chucked her favourites of them under their chins.
“William Oliver!” cried Miss Bell indignantly, having thrown a Shetland shawl about her; “is that all the work you can do in a day?”
He looked up at the window and slowly put his pipe in his pocket.
“Well, m’em,” said he, “I daresay I could do more, but I never was much of a hand for showing off.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
When Miss Bell rose, as she did in a day or two, bantered into a speedy convalescence by Ailie and Dan, it was to mark Bud’s future holidays on the calendar, and count the months in such a cunning way that she cheated the year of a whole one, by arguing to herself that the child would be gone a fortnight before they really missed her, and as good as home again whenever she started packing to return. And Edinburgh, when one was reasonable and came to think of it, was not so very awful: the Miss Birds were there, in the next street to the school where Bud was bound for, so if anything should happen,—a fire, for instance—fires were desperately common just now in the newspapers, and ordinary commonsense suggested a whole clothes-rope for the tying up of the young adventurer’s boxes; or if Bud should happen to be really hungry between her usual meals—a common thing with growing bairns,—the Birds were the very ones to make her welcome. It was many a year since Bell had been in Edinburgh,—she had not been there since mother died,—she was determined that, if she had the money and was spared till Martinmas, she should make a jaunt of it and see the shops: it was very doubtful if Miss Minto wasn’t often lamentably out of date with many of her fashions.