The Oriel Window

Miss Lilly's face was cheerful too. At least so it seemed to Ferdy, for she was smiling, and immediately began speaking in a bright, quick way.

But Chrissie looked at her once or twice and "understood." She saw faint traces of tears having been very lately in her governess's kind eyes, and she heard a little tremble in the voice below the cheeriness. "My dear Ferdy," Miss Lilly was saying, "see what comes of holidays! Much better have lessons than accidents, but it's an ill wind that blows no good. We shall have famous time now for your favourite lessons – sums and – "

"Now, Miss Lilly, you're joking – you know you are," said Ferdy, looking up in her face with his sweet blue eyes – eyes that to the young girl's fancy looked very wistful that morning. He had stretched out his arms, and was clasping them round her neck. Ferdy was very fond of Miss Lilly. "Aren't you joking?" He wasn't quite, quite sure if she was, for sums were one of the few crooks in Ferdy's lot, and rather a sore subject.

Something in the tone of his voice made Miss Lilly kiss him again as she replied, "Of course I'm joking, my dear little matter-of-fact. No, your mamma says you are only to do your really favourite lessons for a week or two, and not those if they tire you. We are all going to spoil you, I'm afraid, my boy."

"I don't want to be spoilt," said Ferdy. "Chrissie and I have been talking. I want to make plans and be – be useful or some good to somebody, even if I have to stay in bed a good bit. What I most want to get out of bed for is to lie on the sofa and have the end of it pulled into the window, so that I can see along the roads all ways. Oh, Chrissie, you must tell Miss Lilly about the swallows, and – and – what was it I wanted to ask you?" He looked round, as if he were rather puzzled.

"Are you not talking too much?" said Miss Lilly, for the little fellow's eyes were very bright – too bright, she feared. "Chrissie dear, perhaps you can remember what Ferdy wanted to ask me about."

"Oh, I know," said Ferdy; "it was about Jesse Piggot. Chrissie, you ask."

"We saw you talking to him – at least I did – out of the window, and we wondered what it was about. They all say he's a very naughty boy, Miss Lilly."

"I know," Miss Lilly replied. "He's a Draymoor boy" – Draymoor was the name of the mining village that Ferdy had been thinking about on his birthday morning – "or rather he used to be, till his uncle there died."

"And now he lives at Farmer Meare's, where he works, but he's still naughty," said Chrissie, as if it was rather surprising that the having left off living at the black village had not made Jesse good at once.

Miss Lilly smiled.

"I don't think everybody at Draymoor is naughty," she said. "I think Jesse would have been a difficult boy to manage anywhere, though Draymoor isn't a place with much in the way of good example certainly. But I hope it's getting a little better. If one could get hold of the children." She sat silent for a moment or two, her eyes looking as if they saw scenes not there. "I know several of the miners' families who live nearer us than Draymoor – at Bollins, and there are some such nice children among them."

Bollins was a small hamlet on the Draymoor road, and the little house where Miss Lilly lived with her grandfather, an elderly man who had once been a doctor, was just at the Evercombe side of Bollins.

"But you haven't told us what you were saying to Jesse," said Chrissie.

"Oh no," said Miss Lilly. "Poor boy, it was nice of him. He was asking how Master Ferdy was."

Ferdy looked pleased.

"Did you tell him I was better?" he asked.

"I said I hoped so, but that I had not seen you yet. And then he asked if he might send you his 'respexs' and 'Was there any birds' eggs you'd a fancy for?'"

"Poor Jesse," said Ferdy. "But birds' eggs are one of the things he's been so naughty about – taking them all and selling them to somebody at Freston. Papa's almost sure – at least Ferguson is – that he took some thrushes' eggs out of our garden. Fancy, Miss Lilly!"

"And then for him to offer to get Ferdy any," said Chrissie.

"He knows I c'lect them," said Ferdy; "but papa told me long ago, when I was quite little, never to take all the eggs, and I've never taken more than one. If you see Jesse again will you tell him he must never take more than one, Miss Lilly?"

"I think in this case," she replied, "it is better to tell him not to take any at all – the temptation would be too great if he knows he can always sell them. I told him I would give you his message, but that I did not think you wanted any eggs that he could get you, and I advised him to leave bird's-nesting alone, as it had already got him into trouble."

"What did he say?" asked Christine.

"He looked rather foolish and said he 'had nought to do of an evening, that was what got him into mischief; it wasn't as if he had a home of his own,' though as far as that goes, I see plenty of boys who have homes of their own idling about in the evenings. It doesn't matter in the summer, but in the winter grandfather and I often feel sorry for them, and wish we could do something to amuse them. But now, Chrissie dear, we had better go to the schoolroom; your mamma is coming to sit with Ferdy for an hour or so."

"Good-bye, darling," said Chrissie, as she stooped to kiss Ferdy's pale little face – it had grown very pale again since the excitement of seeing Miss Lilly had faded away. "We shall be back soon – won't we, Miss Lilly?" she went on, turning to her governess as they left the room together.

"It depends on how he is," was the reply. "Mrs. Ross hopes that he will have a little sleep now, but if he is awake and not too tired when you have finished your lessons, I will read aloud to you both in his room."

"Miss Lilly," began Chrissie again, looking up very sadly when they were seated at the schoolroom table, "I don't want to be silly, but I really don't feel as if I could do any lessons. It is so – so dreadful to be without Ferdy, when you think that only the day before yesterday we were both here together and so happy, looking forward to his birthday," and the child put her head down on her arms and broke into deep though quiet sobs.

In an instant Miss Lilly had left her place and was kneeling on the floor beside her.

"My poor little Chrissie, my dear little Chrissie," she said, "I am so sorry for you," and the tone of her voice showed that it was difficult for her to keep back her own tears, – "so very sorry; but remember, dear, that we can do much better for Ferdy by controlling our grief than by giving way to it. A great deal depends on keeping him cheerful and happily employed and interested. When I got your mother's note yesterday afternoon – oh dear, what a shock it was to me! – I spoke to my grandfather about Ferdy a great deal, and he said in such cases much depends on not letting the nervous system give way. Do you understand at all what I mean?"

"Yes, I think so," said Chrissie, drying her eyes and listening eagerly. "You mean if poor Ferdy was to lie there all day alone, like some poor children have to do, I daresay, he'd get to feel as if he would never get well again."

"Just so," said Miss Lilly, pleased to see how sensible Chrissie was. "Of course, he must not be tired or allowed to excite himself, and for a few days he is sure to be restless and fidgety from weakness; but as he gradually gets stronger again in himself, we must do all we can not only to amuse him, but to keep up his interest in things and people outside himself."

"I know," said Chrissie, "if he can feel he's of any good to anybody, that would make him happier than anything. Ferdy has never been selfish, has he, Miss Lilly?"

"No, he certainly has never seemed so, and I do not think suffering and trial such as he may have to bear will make him so."

Chrissie's face fell again at the two sad words.

Miss Lilly saw it, and went on speaking quietly. "I don't mean anything very dreadful, dear, but he may have to stay in bed or on a couch for a long time, and of course that cannot but be a great trial to an active boy. Let us get on with your lessons now, Chrissie, in case Ferdy is awake when they are over."

He was not awake. He slept a good part of the morning, which Mrs. Ross, sitting beside him, was very glad of; and when at last he opened his eyes and looked about him, it was not long before a smile came to his face, and he cheered his mother by saying he felt "so nicely rested."

"May Chris and Miss Lilly come back now?" he asked. "Miss Lilly said she would read aloud."

Yes, Chris and Miss Lilly would be only too happy to come, but first Ferdy must be "good" and drink some beef-tea, which was standing all ready.

It was rather an effort to do so. Ferdy did not like beef-tea, and he was not at all hungry, and he just wanted to lie still and not be bothered. But "To please me" from his mother was enough, and when she kissed him and said he was "a good boy," he told her, laughing, that he felt as if he were a little baby again.

Chrissie's face brightened when she heard the sound of her brother's laugh.

"Are you feeling better, Ferdy dear?" she said. "I am so glad, and Miss Lilly has brought a story-book of her own that we have never read."

"Oh, how nice!" said Ferdy. "Do tell me the name of the book, Miss Lilly."

"It is short stories," she replied. "I will read you the names of some of them, and you shall choose which you would like best."

The titles were all very tempting, but Ferdy made a good hit, and fixed upon one of the most interesting in the book, so said Miss Lilly. It was about a family of children in Iceland, and though it was rather long, they wished there was more of it when it came to an end. Then Miss Lilly looked at her watch.

"There is still a quarter of an hour," she said, as she turned over the leaves. "Yes, here is a short story, which will just about fill up the time."

Ferdy and Chrissie looked very pleased, but they did not say anything. They were so afraid of losing any of the precious fifteen minutes.

CHAPTER VI

A FAIRY TALE – AND THOUGHTS

"The name of the story," said Miss Lilly, "is 'A Fairy House,'" and then she went on to read it.

"Once upon a time there was a fairy who had done something wrong, and for this reason had to be punished. I do not know exactly what it was that she had done, perhaps only something that we should scarcely think wrong at all, such as jumping on a mushroom before it was full grown, or drinking too much dew out of a lily-cup, and thereby leaving the poor flower thirsty through the hot noontide. Most likely it was nothing worse than something of this kind, but still it was a fault that had to be corrected; so the little culprit was banished to a desert part of fairyland, a bleak and barren spot, which you would scarcely have thought could be found in the magic country which we always think of as so bright and beautiful.