A TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS EVE.
BY LUCIE E. JACKSON.
I was always a very fearless girl. I do not say I never knew what fear was, for on the occasion I am about to relate I was distinctly frightened; but I was able to bear myself through it as if I felt nothing, and by this means to reassure my poor mother, who perhaps realised the danger more thoroughly than I did.
Norah says if it had happened to her she would just have died of fright, and I do think she would have, for she is so delicate and timid, and has such very highly-strung nerves. Mother and I always call it our adventure. I, with a laugh now; but mother, always with a shudder and a paling of her sweet face, for she and Norah are very much alike in constitution. She says if I had not been her stay and backbone on that occasion she must surely have let those awful French people rob her of all she possessed. But I am going on too fast.
It happened in this way. Father had some business to transact in France in connection with his firm, and had gone off in high spirits, for after the business was finished and done with he had arranged to do a little travelling on his own account with Mr. Westover—an old chum of his.
We had heard regularly from him as having a very good time till one morning the post brought a letter to say he had contracted a low fever and was lying sick at a wayside inn. He begged us not to be alarmed for his friend was very attentive, and he hoped soon to be himself again. Mother was unhappy, we saw that, but Norah and I tried to cheer her up by saying how strong father always was, and how soon he shook off any little illness. It was his being sick away from home and in a foreign country that troubled her.
A few days after a telegram arrived from Mr. Westover. He said mother must come at once, for the doctor had serious misgivings as to the turn the fever might take.
"Mother, you must take Phyllis with you," decided Norah, who was trembling from head to foot, but trying to appear calm for mother's sake.
I looked up at mother with eager eyes, for though the thought of dear father lying dangerously ill chilled me all over, yet the idea of travelling to France made my heart leap within me.
Mother was packing a handbag when Norah spoke. She looked up and saw my eyes round with delight.