_Friday evening_
Here I was interrupted, and now something new has happened that
requires telling, so I'll skip our adventures of Thursday afternoon,
and go on to Friday....
Well, this morning I came down to breakfast, almost blind with
neuralgia. I struggled on till luncheon, when it became unbearable.
Virginia (I call her that already) looked at me in the kindest way
during the meal.
'You're ill,' she said. 'You need putting to bed.'
Mrs. MacGill looked surprised. 'Cecilia is never very ill,' she
observed tepidly.
'She's ill now, no mistake,' Virginia persisted, and rose and came
round to my side of the table. 'Come and let me help you upstairs and
put you to bed.'
I was too ill to resist, and she led me to my room and tucked me up
comfortably.
'Now,' she said, 'this headache wants peace of mind to cure it; I know
the kind. You can't get peace for thinking about Mrs. MacGill. I'm
going to take her off your mind for the afternoon--it's time I tried
companioning--no girl knows when she may need to earn a living. You
won't know your Mrs. MacGill when you get her again! I'll dress her up
and walk her out, and humour her.'
She bent down and kissed me as she spoke. It was the sweetest kiss!
Her face is like a peach to feel, and her clothes have a delicious
scent of violets. Somehow all my troubles seemed to smooth out. She
rustled away in her silk-lined skirts, and I fell into a much-needed
sleep, feeling that all would be well.
I was mistaken, however. All did not go well, but on the contrary
something very unfortunate happened while I was sleeping so quietly.
It must have been about four o'clock when I was wakened by Virginia
coming into my room again. She looked a little ruffled and pale.
'I've brought Mrs. MacGill back to you, Miss Evesham,' she said, 'but
it's thanks to Sir Archibald, not to me. She will tell you all about
it.' With that Mrs. MacGill came tottering into the room, plumped down
upon the edge of my bed, and began a breathless, incoherent story in
which wild ponies, stampedes, lanes, Sir Archibald, and herself were
all mixed up together.
'Did he really save you from a bad accident?' I asked Virginia, for it
was impossible to make out anything from Mrs. MacGill.
Virginia nodded. 'He did, Cecilia, and I like him,' she said.
'Oh ho!' I thought. 'Is it possible that I am going to be mixed up in
a romance? She likes him, does she? Very good; we shall see.'
And then, because the world always appears a neutral-tinted place to
me, without high lights of any kind, I rebuked myself for imagining
that anything lively could ever come my way. 'I couldn't even look on
at anything romantic nowadays,' I thought, 'I doubt if there _is_ such
a thing as romance; it's just a figment of youth. Come, Mrs. MacGill,
I'll find your knitting for you,' I said; 'that will compose you
better than anything else.'