“My amulet, I cannot eat a morsel while I see your hand shake. Darling, I must tell you all; I cannot bear your anxiety.”
The second mackerel, a fish of no manners, instead of curling his tail at the frying, had glued it to the pan, until a tear of Amyʼs fried, and then he let go in a moment. John Rosedew caught his darling child, and drew her to his knees, with the frying–pan in her hand; and then he made her look at him, and she tried to have her eyes dry. Do what she might she could not speak, only to let her neck rise, and her drooping eyelids tremble.
“My own lifeʼs love, I have told you the worst. God is very good to us. Cradock has been at the point of death, but now he is better a little. Only his mind is in danger. And it must come home very slowly, if it comes at all. Now, darling, you know everything.”
She took his magnificent silvery head between her little white hands, and kissed him twice on either brow, but not a word she said.
“My own sweet child,” cried her father, slowly passing one arm around her, and swindling his heart of a smile; “I am apt to make the worst of things. Let us try to be braver, or at least to have more faith.”
She leaped up at that very word, with the dawn of a glorious smile in her eyes, and she took the frying–pan once again, and eased out, with a white–handled knife, mackerel No. 3. But, upon second thoughts, she let him slide into the frizzle again, to keep him warm and comfortable. Her heart was down very deep just now, but for all that, her father must have and must enjoy his supper.
“Father, I am all right now. Only eat your supper, dear. What a selfish thing I am!”
“Have a bit, my darling heart.”
“Yes, I will have a bit of tail, pa, just to test my cookery. Thatʼs what I call frying! Look at the blue upon him, and the crisp brown shooting over it! Come, daddy, no nonsense, if you please. I could have eaten all three of them if I had only been out on the warren. And you to come starving from London! Now No. 3, papa, if you please.” But she kept her face away from him, and bent her neck peculiarly.
“How beautifully fresh this ale is! Oh, the stuff they sell in London! I am almost inclined to consider the result of taking another half glass.”