letter'
She fell again into an agony of sobbing, not without a little hope that Aunt Lily would be again brought to her side. At last the door was softly pushed open in the dark, but it was not Aunt Lily, it was Mysie's little bare feet that patted up to the bed, her arms that embraced, her cheek that was squeezed against the tearful one-'Oh, Dolly, Dolly! please don't cry so sadly!'
'Oh! it is so dreadful, Mysie!'
'Are you ill-like the other night?'
'No-but-Mysie-I can't bear it!'
'I don't want to call mamma,' said Mysie, thoughtfully, 'for she is so much tired, and Uncle Regie and Gill said she would be quite knocked up, and got her to come up to bed when we went. Dolly, would it be better if I got into your bed and cuddled you up?'
'Oh yes! oh yes! please do, there's a dear good Mysie.'
There was not much room, but that mattered the less, and the hugging of the warm arms seemed to heal the terrible sense of being unloved and forsaken, the presence to drive away the visions of angry faces that had haunted her; but there was the longing for fellow-feeling on her, and she said, 'That's nice! Oh, Mysie! you can't think what it is like! Uncle Regie said I didn't care, and he could never forgive deliberate deceit-and I was so fond of Uncle Regie!'
'Oh! but he will, if you never tell a story again,' said Mysie-and, as she felt a gesture implying despair-'Yes, they do; I told a story once.'
'You, Mysie! I thought you never did?'
'Yes, once, when we were crossing to Ireland and nurse wouldn't let Wilfred tie our handkerchiefs together and fish over the side, and he was very angry, and threw her parasol into the sea when she wasn't looking; and I knew she would be so cross, that when she asked me if I knew what was become of it, I said 'No,' and thought I didn't, really. But then it came over me, again and again, that I had told a story, and, oh! I was so miserable whenever I thought of it-at church, and saying my prayers, you know; and mamma was poorly, and couldn't come to us at night for ever so long, but at last I could bear it no longer, I heard her say, 'Mysie is always truthful,' and then I did get it out, and told her. And, oh! she and papa were so kind, and they did quite and entirely forgive me!'
'Yes, you told of your own accord; and they were your own-not Uncle Regie. Ah! Mysie, everybody hates me. I saw them all looking at me.'
'No, no! Don't say such things. Dolly. None of us do anything so shocking.'
'Yes, Jasper does, and Wilfred and Val!'
'No! no! no! they don't hate; only they are tiresome sometimes; but if you wouldn't be cross they would be nice directly-at least Japs and Val. And 'tisn't hating with Willie, only he thinks teasing is fun.'
'And you and Gillian. You can only just bear me.
'No! no! no!' with a great hug, 'that's not true.'
'You like Fly ever so much better!'
'She is so dear, and so funny,' said Mysie, the truthful, 'but somehow, Dolly dear, do you know, I think if you and I got to love one another like real friends, it would be nicer still than even Fly-because you are here like one of us, you know; and besides, it would be more, because you are harder to get at. Will you be my own friend. Dolly?'
'Oh, Mysie, I must!' and there was a fresh kissing and hugging.
'And there's mamma,' added Mysie.
'Yes, I know Aunt Lily does now; but, oh! if you had seen Uncle Alfred's face, and heard Uncle Regie,' and Dolly began to sob again as they returned on her. 'I see them whenever I shut my eyes!'
'Darling,' whispered Mysie, 'when I feel bad at night, I always kneel up in bed and say my prayers again!'
'Do you ever feel bad?'
'Oh yes, when I'm frightened, or if I've been naughty, and haven't told mamma. Shall we do it, Dolly?'
'I don't know what that has to do with it, but we'll try.'
'Mamma told me something to say out of.'
The two little girls rose up, with clasped hands in their bed, and Mysie whispered very low, but so that her companion heard, and said with her a few childish words of confession, pleading and entreating for strength, and then the Lord's Prayer, and the sweet old verse:-
'I lay my body down to sleep,
I give my soul to Christ to keep,
Wake I at morn, as wake I never,
I give my soul to Christ for ever.'
'Ah! but I am afraid of that. I don't like it,' said Dolores, as they lay down again.
'It won't make one never wake,' returned Mysie; 'and I do like to give my soul to Christ. It seems so to rest one, and make one not afraid.'
'I don't know,' said Dolores; 'and why did you say the Lord's Prayer? That hasn't anything to do with it!'
'Oh, Dolly, when He is our Father near, though our own dear fathers are far away, and there's deliver us from evil-all that hurts us, you know-and forgive us. It's all there.'
'I never thought that,' said Dolores. 'I think you have some different prayers from mine. Old nurse taught me long ago. I wish you would always say yours with me. You make them nicer.'
Mysie answered with a hug, and a murmured 'If I can,' and offered to say the 121st Psalm, her other step to comfort, and, as she said it, she resolved in her mind whether she could grant Dolores's request; for she was not sure whether she should be allowed to leave her room before saying her own, and she I knew enough of Dolores by this time to be aware that to say she would ask mamma's leave would put an end to all. 'I know,' was her final decision; 'I'll say my own first, and then come to Dolly's room.'
But by that time Dolores was asleep, even if Mysie had not been too sleepy to speak.
She meant to have rushed to the room she shared with Valetta before it was time to get up, but Lots found the black head and the brown together on Dolores's pillow, wrapped in slumber; and though Mysie flew home as soon as she was well awake, Mrs. Halfpenny descended on her while she was yet in her bath, and inflicted a sharp scolding for the malpractice of getting into her cousin's bed.
'But Dolly was so miserable, nurse, and mamma was too tired to call.'
'Then you should have called me, Miss Mysie, and I'd have sorted her well! You kenned well 'tis a thing not to be done and at your age; ye should have minded your duties better.'
And nurse even intercepted Mysie on her way to Dolores's room, and declared she would have no messing and gossiping in one another's rooms. Miss Mysie was getting spoilt among strangers.
Mysie went down with a strong sense of having been disobedient, as well as of grief for Dolores's disappointment. Happily mamma was late that morning, and nobody was in her room but Primrose. Poor Mysie had soon, with tears in her eyes, confessed her transgression. Her mother's tears, to her great surprise, were on her cheek together with a kiss. 'Dear child, I am not displeased. Indeed, I am not; I will tell nurse. It must not be a habit, but this was an exception, and I am only thankful you could comfort her.
'And, mamma, may I go now to her. She said I could help her to say her prayers, and I think she only has little baby ones that her nurse taught her and she doesn't see into the Lord's Prayer.'
'My dear, my dear, if you can help her to pray you will do the thing most sure to be a blessing to her of all.'
And when Mysie was gone, Lady Merrifield knelt down afresh in thankfulness.
CHAPTER XVIII. MYSIE AND DOLORES.
Things were going on more quietly at Silverton. That is to say, there were no outward agitations, for the house was anything but quiet. Lady Merrifield had no great love for children's parties, where, as she said, they sat up too late, to eat and drink what was not good for them, and to get presents that they did not care about; and though at Dublin it had been necessary on her husband's account to give and take such civilities, she had kept out of the exchange at Silverton. But, on the other hand, there were festivals, and she promoted a full amount of special treats at home among themselves, or with only an outsider or two, and she endured any amount of noise, provided it was not quarrelsome, over-boisterous, or at unfit times.
