"Oh, Queen, I do think something is the matter. Mr. Chester is coming up this way, and he has got Nan in his arms, and she looks so odd; I am sure she is ill or something."
"Is he bringing her here, or to Church-Stile House?" asked her sister anxiously; but as she spoke Mr. Chester's tall figure came into sight. In another moment there was a click of the little gate, and he came rapidly up to them carrying his child.
"May I come in, Miss Marriott? the sun is so hot I dare not go up the lane;" and, as Queenie nodded and made room for him to pass into their cool little sitting-room, he continued in an agitated voice, "I do not know what ails Nan, she has been sleepy and quiet for a long time, and just now she turned very sick and poorly."
He had placed himself in the low chair by the window as he spoke, and Queenie knelt down by him and examined the child. As she untied the large white sun-bonnet Nan shrank from her rather restlessly.
"Nan did want to go home, father; Nan very sick," she answered, hiding her face on his shoulder.
"That is what she keeps saying over and over again," he continued, still more anxiously. "She was quite well when we left home this morning; she and her little maid were chasing each other along the lanes, pelting each other with poppies. I thought she was only tired and wanted to be carried; I can't understand this sickness and drowsiness all at once. Do you think, Miss Marriott, that it could possibly be a sunstroke?"
"I don't know; her eyes certainly look very odd," returned Queenie in great perplexity.
"Oh, father! Nan is so very tired," moaned the little creature again, creeping closer to his broad breast. "Ellen did say it was naughty to eat the pretty currants; but Nan is good now, only so sick."
"Have you any pain, my darling?" he asked, bending over her.
"No; no pain, only Nan so tired," she repeated, in the most pathetic voice. Mr. Chester looked appealingly at Queenie.