Chapter Four.
Hard to endure.
Mrs Vallery went upstairs to see Norman. She found him still seated in the chair looking very sulky.
“Mrs Norton and Susan and everybody have been scolding at me,” he muttered; “I wish you would send them all away. And Fanny is as bad as any of them, and nobody cares for me, and Fanny has slapped my face, and I will slap hers another time, though she is a girl,” and Norman began to cry.
“My dear child, we all care very much for you,” said his mamma, not knowing of course how he had cut his finger, and as she had promised Fanny not to do so, she did not ask him. “I am very sorry that Fanny should have slapped your face, but I am afraid you must have done something to provoke her, I must ask her why she did it. I cannot help thinking that you must have been naughty, or Mrs Norton and Susan would not have scolded you. Come down with me into the garden, we will have a game of battledore and shuttlecock on the lawn, the fresh air will do you good.”
“I cannot play, my hand hurts me so much,” answered Norman.
Mrs Vallery, seeing from the small size of the finger-stall Mrs Norton had put on, that the injury could not be very severe, insisted that Norman should accompany her.
“You will soon, I hope, Norman, go to school, where you will have other boys to play with,” observed Mrs Vallery, as she led him downstairs.
She felt that the child was left too much alone by himself, and that if placed with companions of his own age, they would assist to correct some of his many faults. “If his papa consents to send him to school, he will at all events not be permitted there to have his own way, as he has hitherto been,” she said to herself, and she determined to try and get Captain Vallery to select a school as soon as possible, knowing well that Mrs Leslie would support her.