Stand still, Cedric! Just tell me about Ada. Is there
much harm done?'
'Her face is scorched a good deal, but they say it will soon be
right.'
'I am glad--we will send to inquire to-morrow, but I cannot come--ha,
ha! a new infernal machine. Good-bye, Friar Bacon.'
Away he went, and Maurice stood looking after him with complacent
disdain. 'There they go, Cedric and Rotherwood, equally well
provided with brains! What is the use of talking science to either?'
It was late when he reached the house, and his two sisters shortly
came down to tea, with news that Adeline was asleep and Phyllis was
going to bed. The accident was again talked over.
'Well,' said Emily, 'I do not understand it, but I suppose papa
will.'
'The telling papa is a bad part of the affair, with William and
Eleanor there too,' said Jane.
'I do not mean to speak to Phyllis about it again,' said Emily, 'it
makes her cry so terribly.'
'It will come out fast enough,' sighed Maurice. 'Good-night.'
More than once in the course of the night did poor Phyllis wake and
cry, and the next day was the most wretched she had ever spent; she
was not allowed to stay in the nursery, and the schoolroom was
uninhabitable, so she wandered listlessly about the garden, sometimes
creeping down to the churchyard, where she looked up at the old
tower, or pondered over the graves, and sometimes forgetting her
troubles in converse with the dogs, in counting the rings in the
inside of a foxglove flower, or in rescuing tadpoles stranded on the
broad leaf of a water-lily.
Pages:
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310