“Serve him right,” said Jack, “it was a dirty trick to play.”
“Hush,” said Phoena, “here comes Mrs. Busson. Oh dear, what will she be like?”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
“A PRETTY PICTURE.”
WELL knowing all that she had gone through for their sakes, the children felt terribly shy of meeting their hostess.
But, save that her face was a little pale, and that her eyelids showed narrow red rims, there was nothing in her quiet, pleasant greeting, no lack of warmth in her bright smile, to betray that anything had gone wrong with her.
For the first time, perhaps, in their lives, Fay and Phoena realised how much elder folk may suffer for the misdoings of the young, and how unselfishly they may conceal that suffering from its authors.
“Well, now, my dears,” she began, and there was a certain jerkiness in her tone now, which, to older ears would have told its own story, “I want you all to make an extra good breakfast, and I’ll tell you the reason why.”
Oh, then they were going to be sent away. Faith felt sure of that.
“We’re going to have such beautiful weather to-day,” Mrs. Busson went on—as if a fine day during that remarkably dry season were quite a novelty—“that I’ve thought of a little treat for you all.”
The elder girls breathed freely.