Probable Sons Part 4

"I will leave you to do that," was the curt reply.

"Well, if you don't want to pray for Tommy, pray for G.o.d's probable sons, won't you? Do, Uncle Edward. Mrs. Maxwell said the only thing that comforted her is asking G.o.d to bring Tommy back."

Sir Edward made no reply, only dismissed her more peremptorily than usual, and when she had left the room he leaned his arms on the chimney piece, and resting his head on them, gazed silently into the fire with a knitted brow. His thoughts did not soothe him, for he presently raised his head with a short laugh, saying to himself,--

"Where is my cigar-case? I will go and have a smoke to get rid of this fit of the blues. I shall have to curb that child's tongue a little. She is getting too troublesome."

And while he was pacing moodily up and down the terrace outside, a little white-robed figure, with bent head and closed eyes, was saying softly and reverently as she knelt at her nurse's knee--

"And, O G.o.d, bring Tommy back, and don't let him be a probable son any more. Bring him home very soon, please, and will you bring back all your probable sons who are running away from you, for Jesus Christ's sake.

Amen."

Sir Edward did not escape several visits from ladies in the neighborhood offering to befriend his little niece, but all these overtures were courteously and firmly rejected. He told them the child was happy with her nurse, he did not wish her to mix with other children at present, and a year or two hence would be quite time enough to think about her education. So Milly was left alone, more than one mother remarking with a shake of the head--

"It's a sad life for a child, but Sir Edward is peculiar, and when he gets a notion into his head he keeps to it."

The child was not unhappy, and when the days grew shorter, and her rambles out of doors were curtailed, she would lie on the tiger-skin by the hall fire with Fritz for the hour together, pouring out to him all her childish confidences.

Sometimes her uncle would find her perched on the broad window-seat half-way up the staircase, with her little face pressed against the windowpanes, and late on one very cold afternoon in November he remonstrated with her.

"It is too cold for you here, Millicent," he said sternly; "you ought to be in the nursery."

"I don't feel cold," she replied. "I don't like being in the nursery all day; and when it gets dark, nurse will have the lamp lit and the curtains drawn, and then there are only the walls and ceiling and the pictures to look at. I'm tired of them; I see them every day."

"And what do you see here?" asked Sir Edward.

"You come and sit down, and I will tell you. There's room, uncle; make Fritz move a little. Now, you look out with me. I can see such a lot from this window. I like looking out right into the world; don't you?"

"Are we not in the world? I thought we were."

"I s'pose we are, but I mean G.o.d's world. The insides of houses aren't His world, are they? Do you see my trees? I can see Goliath from this window; he looks very fierce to-night; he has lost all his leaves, and I can almost hear him muttering to himself. And then, uncle, do you see those nice thin trees cuddling each other? I call those David and Jon'than; they're just kissing each other, like they did in the wood, you know. Do you remember? And there's my beech-tree over there, where I sit when I'm the probable son. It's too dark for you to see all the others. I have names for them all nearly, but I like to come and watch them, and then I see the stars just beginning to come out. Do you know what I think about the stars? They're angels' eyes, and they look down and blink at me so kindly, and then I look up and blink back. We go on blinking at each other sometimes till I get quite sleepy. I watch the birds going to bed too. There is so much I can see from this window."

"Well, run along to the nursery now; you have been here long enough."

Milly jumped down from her seat obediently; then catching hold of her uncle's hand as he was moving away, she said,--

"Just one thing more I want to show you, uncle. I can see the high-road for such a long way over there, and when it is not quite so dark I sit and watch for Tommy--that's Maxwell's probable son, you know. I should be so glad if I were to see him coming along one day with his head hanging down, and all ragged and torn. He is sure to come some day--G.o.d will bring him--and if I see him coming first, I shall run off quick to Maxwell and tell him, and then he will run out to meet him. Won't it be lovely?"

And with s.h.i.+ning eyes Milly shook back her brown curls and looked up into her uncle's face for sympathy. He patted her head, the nearest approach to a caress that he ever gave her, and left her without saying a word.

Another day, later still, he came upon her at the staircase window. He was dining out that night, and was just leaving the house, but stopped as he noticed his little niece earnestly waving her handkerchief up at the window.

"What are you doing now?" he inquired as he pa.s.sed down the stairs.

Milly turned round, her little face flushed, and eyes looking very sweet and serious.

"I was just waving to G.o.d, Uncle Edward. I thought I saw Him looking down at me from the sky."

Sir Edward pa.s.sed on, muttering inaudibly,--

"I believe that child lives in the presence of G.o.d from morning to night".

CHAPTER V.

A PRODIGAL.

"Uncle Edward, nurse and I are going shopping; would you like us to buy you anything? We are going in the dog-cart with Harris."

Milly was dancing up and down on the rug inside the front door as she spoke. It was a bright, frosty morning, and Sir Edward was leaving the breakfast-room with the newspaper and a large packet of letters in his hand. He stopped and glanced at the little fur-clad figure as she stood there, eager antic.i.p.ation written on her face, and his thoughts went back to the time when he as a boy looked upon a day's visit to the neighboring town--nine miles away--as one of his greatest pleasures.

"Yes," he said, slowly fumbling in his waistcoat pocket; "you can get me some pens and blotting paper at the stationer's. I will write down the kind I want, and here is the money. Keep the change, and buy anything you like with it."

Milly's cheeks flushed with delight as she took the money--

"What a lot it will buy!" she said. "Thank you very much indeed. I was wanting to buy something my own self, and I've only a little cook gave me, but now I shall be quite rich."

It was late in the afternoon when nurse and her little charge drove back, and Sir Edward met them coming up the avenue. Milly's face was clouded, and there were traces of tears on her cheeks, and this was such an unusual sight that Sir Edward inquired of the nurse what was the matter.

"She has not been good, sir, I am sorry to say. It isn't often that I have to pull her up, but she has given me such a fright and trouble this afternoon as I am not likely to forget in a hurry."

"What has she been doing? But never mind; I will not detain you now. I can hear about it when we get in."

Nurse was evidently very disturbed in mind, for she poured into Sir Edward's ear, directly they were inside the hall, a confused story:--

"I was in the grocer's, sir, and I knew I should be there some time; for cook, she gave me so many commissions I had to write a long list of them. I said to Miss Milly, 'You can stand outside, but don't go a step farther.' She knows she is never allowed to speak to such people; I've known, as I told her, children being carried bodily off and set down at a street corner with hardly a rag on their backs; and to think of her marching off with him, and never a thought of my anxiety--and the way I went rus.h.i.+ng up and down the streets--and the policemen--they are perfectly useless to help a person, but can only stare at you and grin.

I'm sure I never expected to light eyes on her again, and I lost my purse and my best umbrella; I left them both somewhere, but it was nigh on two hours I spent, and my shopping not near done, and he the greatest looking rascal that one might see coming out of jail. I'm sure I shouldn't have been so angry but to see her smiling face, as if she hadn't done any wrong at all, nor disobeyed me flatly, and most likely put herself in the way of catching the most infectious disease from the very look of him, and run the risk of being robbed and perhaps murdered, and not an idea in her head that she was a very naughty child, but quite expected me to see the reasonableness of it all!"

Nurse stopped for breath, whilst Milly's hanging head, heaving chest, and quick sobs showed that by this time nurse's words had quite convinced her of her wrong-doing.

Sir Edward was surprised at the interest he felt in his little niece's trouble.

"I am afraid I cannot understand your story, nurse," he said quietly; "but I daresay Miss Millicent will tell me herself. Come into the study, child, with me."

He took her hand in his, and led her away, while nurse looked after him in astonishment, and Ford, the old butler, standing by, said with great solemnity,--

"You may well stare, nurse. Mark my words, that child will be able to twist him round with her little finger one of these days. I see it a-developin'. It will be a terrible come-down to the master--but there, I will say that the women always conquer, and they begin it when they're in short frocks."

"I don't see the remarkableness in a gentleman taking notice of his own sister's child," returned nurse testily; "the wonder is that he should hold her at arm's length as he does, and treat her as if she were a dog or a piece of furniture, without any feelings, and she his own flesh and blood, too. There's no 'coming down' to have a spark of humanity in his breast occasionally."

And nurse sailed upstairs, the loss of her purse and umbrella having considerably ruffled her usually even temper.

Sir Edward seated himself by the study fire, and Milly stood before him, one little hand resting upon his knee and the other holding her tiny handkerchief to her eyes, and vainly trying to restrain her sobs.

"Now suppose you stop crying, and tell me what has happened!" her uncle said, feeling moved at seeing his usually self-contained little niece in such grief.