“Oh, Lennox! my poor sinful bairn!” said her aunt, most melancholy.
“I didn’t mean the least harm,” protested the child, trembling on the verge of tears. “I did it all to make Kate feel kind of gay, for I hate to see a body mope,—and I wanted a little fun myself,” she added hastily, determined to confess all.
“I’ll Kate her, the wretch!” cried Auntie Bell quite furious, gathering up her knitting.
“Why, Auntie Bell, it wasn’t her fault, it was—”
But before she could say more, Miss Bell was flying to the house for an explanation, Footles barking at her heels astonished, for it was the first time he had seen her trot with a ball of wool trailing behind her. The maid had the kitchen window open to the last inch, and looked out on a street deserted but for a ring of bairns that played before the baker’s door. Their voices, clear and sweet, and laden with no sense of care or apprehension, filled the afternoon with melody—
“Water, water wall-flowers,
Growing up so high,
We are all maidens,
And we must all die.”
To the maid of Colonsay in an autumn mood, the rhyme conveyed some pensive sentiment that was pleasant though it almost made her cry: the air slipped to her heart, the words in some way found the Gaelic chord that shakes in sympathy with minor keys, for beautiful is all the world, our day of it so brief! Even Miss Bell was calmed by the children’s song as it came from the sunny street into the low-ceiled shady kitchen. She had played that game herself, sung these words long ago, never thinking of their meaning: how pitiful it was that words and a tune should so endure, unchanging, and all else alter!
“Kate, Kate, you foolish lass!” she cried, and the maid drew in with the old astonishment and remorse, as if it was her first delinquency.
“I—I was looking for the post,” said she.
“Not for the first time, it seems,” said her mistress. “I’m sorry to hear it was some business of yours that sent Miss Lennox to the post-office on a wet night that was the whole cause of our tribulation. At least you might have seen the wean was dried when she came back.”