She did look so pretty; she was all in white, and she had a rose--one of the lovely roses I had been admiring as we ran--fastened to the front of her dress.

"Mamma, mamma," I exclaimed, as I hugged her, "oh, mamma, I am so happy to be with you. Is this your garden, mamma, and may we stay with you always now? Wasn't it good of the lions to bring us? I have been so unhappy, mamma--somebody said you would get ill far away. But n.o.body could get ill here. Oh, mamma, you will let us stay always."

She did not speak, but looking at Haddie I saw a change in his face.

"Geraldine," he said, "I told you we couldn't stay long. The lions would be scolded if we did, and you know you must say your French poetry."

And then there came over me the most agonising feeling of disappointment and misery. All the pent-up wretchedness of the last weeks at school woke up and overwhelmed me like waves of dark water. It is as impossible for me to put this into words as it was for me to describe my exquisite happiness, for no words ever succeed in expressing the intense and extraordinary sensations of some dreams. And of course, as you will have found out by this time, the strange adventures I have been relating were those of a dream, though I still, after all the years that have pa.s.sed since then, remember them so vividly.

It was the fatal words "French poetry" that seemed to awake me--to bring back my terrible unhappiness, exaggerated by the fact of my dreaming.

"French poetry," I gasped, "oh, Haddie, how can you remind me of it?"

Haddie suddenly turned away, and I saw the face of one of the lions looking over his shoulder, with, strange to say, a white frilled cap surrounding it.

"You must try to drink this, my dear," said the lion, if the lion it was, for as I stared at him the brown face changed into a rather ruddy one--a round good-humoured face, with pleasant eyes and smile, reminding me of mamma's old nurse who had once come to see us.

I stared still more, and sat up a little, for, wonderful to relate, I was no longer in the lovely garden, no longer even in the show-room leaning against the lion: I was in bed in a strange room which I had never seen before. And leaning over me was the owner of the frilled cap, holding a gla.s.s in her hand.

"Try to drink this, my dearie," she said again, and then I knew it was not the lion but this stranger who had already spoken to me.

I felt very tired, and I sank back again upon the pillow. What did it all mean? Where was I? Where had I been? I asked myself this in a vague sleepy sort of way, but I was too tired to say it aloud, and before I could make up my mind to try I fell asleep again.

The room seemed lighter the next time I opened my eyes. It was in fact nearly the middle of the day, and a fine day--as clear as it ever was in Great Mexington. I felt much better and less tired now, almost quite well, except for a slight pain in my throat which told me I must have caught cold, as my colds generally began in my throat.

"I wonder if it was with riding so far in the night," I first said to myself, with a confused remembrance of my wonderful dream. "I didn't feel at all cold on the lion's back, and in the garden it was lovelily warm."

Then, as my waking senses quite returned, I started. It had been only a dream--oh dear, oh dear! But still, _something_ had happened--I was certainly not in my little bed in the corner of the room I shared with Emma and Harriet Smith at Green Bank. When had my dream begun, or was I still dreaming?

I raised myself a little, very softly, for now I began to remember the good-humoured face in the frilled cap, and I thought to myself that unless its owner were a dream too, perhaps she was still in the room, and I wanted to look about me first on my own account.

What there was to see was very pleasant and very real. I felt quite sure I was not dreaming now, wherever I was. It was a large old-fashioned room, with red curtains at the two windows and handsome dark wood furniture. There was a fire burning cheerfully in the grate and the windows looked very clean, even though there was a prospect of chimney-tops to be seen out of the one nearest to me, which told me I was still in a town. And then I began to distinguish sounds outside, though here in this room it was so still. There were lots of wheels pa.s.sing, some going quickly, some lumbering along with heavy slowness--it was much noisier than at Miss Ledbury's or at my own old home. Here I seemed to be in the very heart of a town. I began to recall the events of the day before more clearly. Yes, up to the time I remembered leaning against the carved lion in Mr. Cranston's show-room all had been real, I felt certain. I recollected with a little shiver the scene in the drawing-room at Green Bank, and how they had all refused to believe I was speaking the truth when I declared that the French poetry had entirely gone out of my head. And then there was the making up my mind that I could bear school no longer, and the secretly leaving the house, and at last losing my way in the streets.

I had meant to go to Mrs. Selwood's, or at least to get her address and write to her--but where was I now?--what should I do?

My head grew dizzy again with trying to think, and a faint miserable feeling came over me and I burst into tears.

I did not cry loudly. But there was some one watching in the room who would have heard even a fainter sound than that of my sobs--some one sitting behind my bed-curtains whom I had not seen, who came forward now and leant over me, saying, in words and voice which seemed curiously familiar to me,

"Geraldine, my poor little girl."

CHAPTER XI.

KIND FRIENDS.

It was Miss Fenmore. I knew her again at once. And she called me "my poor little girl"--the very words she had used when she said good-bye to me and looked so sorry before she went away for the Easter holidays, never to come back, though she did not then know it, to Green Bank.

"You remember me, dear?" she said, in the sweet tones I had loved to hear. "Don't speak if you feel too ill or if it tires you. But don't feel frightened or unhappy, though you are in a strange place--everything will be right."

I felt soothed almost at once, but my curiosity grew greater.

"When did you come?" I said. "You weren't here when I woke before. It was--somebody with a cap--first I thought it was one of the lions."

The sound of my own voice surprised me, it was so feeble and husky, and though my throat did not hurt me much I felt that it was thick and swollen.

Miss Fenmore thought I was still only half awake or light-headed, but she was too sensible to show that she thought so.

"One of the lions?" she said, smiling. "You mean the carved lions that Myra is so fond of. No--that was a very funny fancy of yours--a lion with a cap on! It was old Hannah that you saw, the old nurse. She has been watching beside you all night. When you awoke before, I was out. I went out very early."

She spoke in a very matter-of-fact way, but rather slowly, as if she wanted to be sure of my understanding what she said. And as my mind cleared and I followed her words I grew more and more anxious to know all there was to hear.

"I don't understand," I said, "and it hurts me to speak. Is this your house, Miss Fenmore, and how do you know about the lions? And who brought me in here, and why didn't I know when I was put in this bed?"

Miss Fenmore looked at me rather anxiously when I said it hurt me to speak. But she seemed pleased, too, at my asking the questions so distinctly.

"Don't speak, dear," she said quietly, "and I will explain it all. The doctor said you were not to speak if it hurt you."

"The doctor," I repeated. Another puzzle!

"Yes," said Miss Fenmore, "the doctor who lives in this street--Dr.

Fallis. He knows you quite well, and you know him, don't you? Just nod your head a little, instead of speaking."

But the doctor's name brought back too many thoughts for me to be content with only nodding my head.

"Dr. Fallis," I said. "Oh, I would so like to see him. He could tell me----" but I stopped. "Mrs. Selwood's address" I was going to say, as all the memories of the day before began to rush over me. "Why didn't I know when he came?"

"You were asleep, dear, but he is coming again," said Miss Fenmore quietly. "He was afraid you had got a sore throat by the way you breathed. You must have caught cold in the evening down in the show-room by the lions, before they found you."

And then she went on to explain it all to me. I was in Mr. Cranston's house!--up above the big show-rooms, where he and old Mrs. Cranston lived. They had found me fast asleep, leaning against one of the lions--the old porter and the boy who went round late in the evening to see that all was right for the night, though when the rooms were shut up earlier no one had noticed me. I was so fast asleep, so utterly exhausted, that I had not awakened when the old man carried me up to the kitchen, just as the servants were about going to bed, to ask what in the world was to be done with me; nor even later, when, on Miss Fenmore's recognising me, they had undressed and settled me for the night in the comfortable old-fashioned "best bedroom," had I opened my eyes or spoken.

Old Hannah watched beside me all night, and quite early in the morning Dr. Fallis, who fortunately was the Cranstons' doctor too, had been sent for.

"He said we were to let you have your sleep out," said Miss Fenmore, "though by your breathing he was afraid you had caught cold. How is your throat now, dear?"

"It doesn't hurt very much," I said, "only it feels very shut up."

"I expect you will have to stay in bed all to-day," she replied. "Dr.

Fallis will be coming soon and then we shall know."

"But--but," I began; then as the thought of it all came over me still more distinctly I hid my face in the pillow and burst into tears. "Must I go back to school?" I said. "Oh, Miss Fenmore, they will be so angry--I came away without leave, because--because I couldn't bear it, and they said I told what wasn't true--that was almost the worst of all.

Fancy if they wrote and told mamma that I told lies."

"She would not believe it," said Miss Fenmore quietly; "and besides, I don't think Miss Ledbury would do such a thing, and she always writes to the parents herself, I know. And she is kind and good, Geraldine."