"Yes, I know," said Susie. "When I woke and saw the sailor, I thought it was the ferryman."

"I _had_ paid," said Mrs. Beauchamp.

"Oh, I knew you would," said Susie.

Mrs. Beauchamp took the rug that Mr. Amherst threw to her, and folded it close and warm about Susie's wet locks and damp body; and presently the difficult, sobbing breaths grew quieter, but her mother knew that she was not asleep by the fierce pressure of her fingers.

The day was breaking as the boat was beached, and a dozen willing hands pulled her high and dry. The sea-birds were awake, fluttering about the head of the island; the ebbing tide had left the rocks very black and bare.

When they set Susie on her feet she was too stiff to stand alone, and never for one moment did she loose her hold of her mother's dress. It was the Royal Navy that finally took her into wonderfully tender keeping, and carried her up the steps and along the Parade, and laid her, still wrapped in the rug, on her own white bed, that nurse had made comfortably ready.

d.i.c.kie woke flushed and warm from his rosy sleep when they brought him in, and looked at the old sailor with round, bewildered eyes.

"Is it Father Neptune?" he asked.

"No, darling, no."

"Oh, I see he hasn't got his three-p.r.o.nged fork. Is it Nelson then?"

"I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. Beauchamp, and her laugh was very near tears.--"You will tell the twins at once, please," she said to Mr.

Amherst as she said good-bye. "I cannot bear to feel that they may be awake and waiting."

But Dot and Dash had not pa.s.sed a sleepless night of misery. Long ago, tired out with sorrow, they had fallen asleep on the nursery window-sill, and dreamt that they were sailing on unknown seas in fairy boats!

CHAPTER XIII.

And the wonderful part of it all was that Susie was not even ill! She slept "into the middle of next week," as nurse expressed it; but it was a deep, steady, peaceful sleep, quite undisturbed by any commotion around her. Amy sat most of the morning crouched up on the floor, just inside the room, and waited for the opening of those brown eyes; whilst nurse had even got d.i.c.k and baby safely dressed and out on the sands before Susie's eyelids quivered, and she stretched her stiff limbs, and started up with a cry, "Mother!"

"My darling Susie!"

"O mother! I was so afraid you were a dream."

"Then what are you?"

"A _troublesome comfort_. Nurse said so, and it is true."

She sat straight up in bed, with her knees drawn up and her hands clasped round them. Her hair was rough, and there were no little stiff pigtails telling of nurse's energetic brushing. On her hands there were bruises and scratches that hurt her; but nothing mattered now that she was within reach of the comfortable arms, and could lay her head on the blue serge knee.

"Mummy, is d.i.c.k well?"

"Quite well, darling."

"Mother"--she pressed closer and hid her face--"I am sorry, but I don't know how to say it. I didn't like the twins to think me a baby, and I felt quite certain that I could get back."

"Perhaps you are too certain, darling."

"You mean," said Susie, "that there is too much talk and too little _do_."

"Perhaps that _is_ what I mean, Susie; but when I try to think about it clearly I only see a poor little cold, frightened child, and d.i.c.k as warm as toast."

"I never thought about it, mother. I only prayed and prayed that he might not get bronchitis."

"It is because you did not think about it that I love you, Susie."

"I will try and be better," said Susie humbly.

Straight across the room she caught sight of a reflection in the gla.s.s, and she sat suddenly more upright and gazed at it. It reminded her of that reflection in the train; but this mouth was smiling, not set into sulky lines--these eyes were not full of angry tears!

"Oh, I am perfectly certain I can be good," cried Susie eagerly.

The reflection in the gla.s.s seemed to hesitate; the sparkling eyes fell, and Susie's face went down upon her knees.

She groaned in despair.

"It seems as if I couldn't help it," she said. "I am always perfectly certain."

"And I am perfectly certain that I hear your breakfast on the stairs,"

said Mrs. Beauchamp, "and that is the important thing."

She raised Susie's crimson face, and smoothed the rebellious hair, and patted the pillow into a comfortable shape. Every good nurse knows that tears and protestations must wait their time, and that little patients cannot be allowed the luxury of repentance!

Susie would have liked to pour out volumes of self-reproach and ease her burdened heart, so it was perhaps one little step in the right direction when she resolutely closed her lips and welcomed Amy and the breakfast with a smile.

She came downstairs in the afternoon and lay on the horsehair sofa in the sitting-room, and held a sort of levee of her visitors. Tom was subdued, and the twins were envious--nothing uncommon ever happened to them!

They knew too much or were too cautious, but they sat on two stools by the window and followed Mrs. Beauchamp's movements with their uncanny eyes, until the concentrated gaze made her nervous.

"Both of we would like to be your children," said Dash suddenly.

Mrs. Beauchamp tried to feel grateful for the compliment, and to hide the dismay it inspired.

"It seems rather hard," Dot added, "that Susie should have everything--_and_ a mother too--and we haven't."

"Perhaps you may share me," she suggested.

But the twins viewed the position gloomily. "Us two like things of our own," they said.

"Well, you can't have mother," said d.i.c.k doggedly. "You can have our buckets when we leave, and my boat, and Amy's sh.e.l.ls."

"Oh, not my sh.e.l.ls," cried Amy, aggrieved.

"That's selfish of you," said Tom; "but I have a proper collection, and you haven't. You can have nurse," he generously added.

"Oh no, not nurse," said d.i.c.k.