The short winters day was already closing in when the carriage stopped
at our own door. I was crouched up in one corner, _perfectly_
miserable, the fur rug was in a heap at my feet--when I glanced at it,
and thought of how papa had tucked it round me that very afternoon, I
felt as if I _could_ not bear it. As I got out and entered the hall,
where the light was dim, I saw some one standing at the drawing-room
door. It was mamma waiting for me; she had heard the carriage stopping.
"Connie, is that you?" she said. "Is papa there?"
"No, mamma," I managed to get out. "I'm alone." Then she drew me into
the drawing-room--it looked so warm and bright, the red firelight
dancing on the old furniture--and I was so shivering and cold! Somehow
the look of it all--the look, above all, in mamma's eyes--was too much
for me.
"Mamma, mamma," I sobbed, and once I had begun my tears came like a
thunderstorm, "do you know? Do you know about how naughty I've been?"
She had not really known of course; till I owned to it no one could have
really known, except Anna. But mamma had guessed it was true--in some
ways she knew me and my faults and follies even better than papa did,
gentle as she was. She had been afraid it was true when he told her
that afternoon what I had been accused of--and he had been rather vexed
with her!
"Yes, darling," she said, "I know about it, mostly at least."
She drew my head on to her knee, as I crept close to her where she sat
on a low couch, and let me sob out all my misery. Oh, mamma, dear
little, sweet, unselfish mother--was there, _could_ there ever be any
one so kind as you? And I, who had sometimes almost dared to look down
on her for her very goodness! That afternoon brought me the end of the
lesson I had begun to learn. It was quite dark, and growing late,
before mamma rang for lights. I had cried my eyes into a dreadful
state, and I was still shivering every now and then from a sort of
nervousness. Mamma took me upstairs and made me go to bed.
"You will feel better in the morning," she said. "And I will talk more
to you. We must not _exaggerate_ things, you know, dear. Good-night,
my Connie, my own little Sweet Content."
Was it not nice of her to call me that! I did not go to sleep for a
good while. When I did I slept heavily. It was quite daylight when I
woke. Mamma was standing beside me, and Prudence was setting down a
tray with my breakfast.
"I will come back when you have finished, dear," mamma said. She did
not mention papa, and when I asked Prue she only said he was already
out.
So he was. Not only out, but away. When mamma came up again she told
me that he had got a letter the night before, which had decided him on
going to London for two or three days--I think it was to attend some
scientific meeting.
"He came up to look at you last night," mamma went on, "but you did not
wake."