NATALIE had been left downstairs, there was no doubt about it. She was not in her cradle, she was not in the toy cupboard, she was not on the shelf, she was not on the dresser; she must be downstairs on one of the drawing-room tables, and what is more, face downwards.
This is what passed in the mind of Natalie’s mistress as she lay warmly in her bed. She lay looking at the nightlight shadows, but with this last thought she sat upright, and looked round her. Yes, she must have been asleep, for the nightlight was burning brightly and fully, as it does when it has been alight some time; not showing that melancholy little humpbacked flame with which its vigil commences. “I wonder what time it is,” thought Clare, “I wish I had remembered to bring Natalie up to bed with me.”
She lay down again, and tried to go to sleep, but one feels very wide awake indeed if one keeps thinking of one thing in particular. You feel even if you buttoned your lids down, they would still flutter wide.
There is a writer called George Herbert of whom you have heard, and in one of his poems he says,
I hasted to my bed,
But when I thought to sleep out all these faults
(I sigh to speak)
I found that some had stuffed the bed with thoughts,
I would say thorns,
and rest was impossible. So it was with Clare. She kept seeing Natalie nose downwards.