Wilson sitting all alone where he had left her.
"Why, what on earth is the meaning of that?" thought he; and he went
into the hall and asked Mrs. Wilson how she came to be there all
alone.
"That is what I have been asking myself a while past," was the dry
reply.
"Have you not seen her?"
"No, sir, I have not seen her, and, to my mind, it is doubtful whether
I am to see her."
"But I say you shall see her."
"No, no, don't put yourself out, sir," said the woman, carelessly; "I
dare say I shall have better luck next time, if I should ever come to
this house again, which it is not very likely." She added gently,
"Young folk are thoughtless; we must not judge them too hardly."
"Thoughtless they may be, but they have no business to be heartless. I
have a great mind to go up and fetch her down."
"Don't ye trouble, sir. It is not worth while putting you about for an
old woman like me." Then suddenly dropping the mask of nonchalance
which women of this class often put on to hide their sensibility, she
said, very, very gravely, and with a sad dignity, that one would not
have expected from her gossip and her finery, "I begin to fear, sir,
that the child I have suckled does not care to know me now she is a
woman grown."
David dashed up the stairs with a red streak on his brow. He burst
into the drawing-room, and there sat Mrs. Bazalgette overlooking, and
Lucy working with a face of beautiful calm. She looked just then so
very like a pure, tranquil Madonna making an altar-cloth, or
something, that David's intention to give her a scolding was withered
in the bud, and he gazed at her surprised and irresolute, and said not
a word.
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