As I came out of the room which Betty and I share, after putting away my things, nurse opened the nursery door and beckoned me in: "Miss Nannie,"

she said impressively, "I'm kinder worried 'bout your pa. He's never had no appet.i.te to brag of; but for a week past he's been eatin' like a bird. Mornin' after mornin' he ain't touched nothin' but his tea, an'

I'm afraid something's wrong. I don't want to frighten you, my dear, but I thought by tellin' you, maybe you could find out if anything ails him, and get him to send for the doctor. I think he looks kinder bad, and--lors! child, if anything happened to him, what _would_ become o'

you all!"

I got very nervous, until I remembered how easily nurse gets alarmed; if the children feel the least under the weather, she is apt to imagine that they are going to be seriously ill. "No," I said, "I haven't noticed that he looks badly; but thank you, nursie, for telling me. I'll look closely at him this evening at dinner, and I'll try my best to find out if he isn't well."

Papa always has his breakfast and lunch in the study, and dines with us.

We older ones think that he does this as a duty, for we are pretty sure that he doesn't enjoy it; you see, papa does not really care for children, and there is no grown person now for him to talk to,--except Miss Marston, and she is not very interesting. Poor papa!

He sits at the head of the table, but Phil does the carving; and though very often he does not say a dozen words throughout the entire meal, yet even our daring Betty is subdued into good behaviour by his presence.

There is no reason for it that we know of,--papa has never forbidden our talking at table,--but somehow, since dear mamma has gone, we have very little conversation at dinner; though we make up for it at other meals, I a.s.sure you. I sit in mamma's place now, and this evening, as I looked carefully at papa across the long table, I could see that he did look thinner: there was a tired expression on his face, too, that troubled me. As I pa.s.sed through the hall, about half an hour later, he stood there in overcoat and hat, putting on his gloves before starting out for a meeting of the Archaeological Society; and when I asked, "Papa, are you feeling well? really quite well?" he put on that bored expression that always makes me feel miles away from him.

"Well? Oh, yes!" then he added, with more animation, "Nannie, I wish you would get me that pamphlet that is lying on my desk. I nearly forgot it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ALAN MADE HIS BOW."]

He took the pamphlet when I brought it, and began fingering it aimlessly, giving me a disagreeable feeling of being in the way; and as I turned and ran up the stairs, he went into the drawing-room. He wasn't there but a minute or two,--before I reached the second floor I heard the front door close behind him,--and the next morning, when Nora and I were dusting the drawing-room, we found the pamphlet on the floor before mamma's picture. After all, he had forgotten it.

I ran on up to the schoolroom, and there everybody was in a great state of excitement, preparing for the performance, which was to begin and end early on account of the younger children. There was no attempt at costume, but we girls wore a ribbon--they belong to our "stage property"--tied from shoulder to waist, the boys carried a paper rose in their b.u.t.ton-holes, and Kathie and the twins and Alan were decorated with huge paper-muslin sashes and fancy caps, so that we all presented quite a festive and unusual appearance. The chairs were ranged in rows; the invited guests--Murray Unsworth, and his cousin, Helen Va.s.sah (they always come to our "festive occasions")--arrived; nurse, and Hannah, our maid, came in and took their places at the back, cook stealing in a little later; a bell tinkled; Alan walked out of the closet, was a.s.sisted to the table by Felix,--who was master of ceremonies,--and made his bow to the audience with one hand on his heart and a trumpet in the other, and the performance began.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "VIOLIN DUO, RENDERED BY THE WORLD-RENOWNED VIOLINISTS, MLLE. NANINA AND MONS. FELIX."]

The programme was elaborately printed in two or three colours, on heavy light-brown paper, and it was tacked up on the schoolroom wall in full view of all, so that each person would know when his or her turn had come, and could disappear in the dark closet,--no lights were allowed there for fear of fire,--to reappear immediately before the audience, amid a storm of applause. This is the way the programme read:--

"Yankibus Doodlum," trumpet solo by the Infant Prodigy, Master Alano Enrico Rosie.

"Eight White Sheep," vocal duet, rendered with appropriate finger-play by the Celebrated Twin Singers, Fraulein Madel and Herr Paulus.

"Little White Lily," charming vocal solo by the Famous Prima Donna, Mlle. Kathe.

"Charge of the Six Hundred," favourite recitation by the Distinguished Elocutionist, Prof. Jacqueminot.

Extraordinary exhibition with Indian clubs by the Remarkable Strong Girl, Signorina Bettina, with piano accompaniment by Signorina Eleanora Nonie.

"Serenade," Gounod, violin duo, rendered by the World-Renowned Violinists, Mlle. Nanina and Mons. Felix.

"Le Soupir," piano solo by the Brilliant Pianist, Signorina Eleanora Nonie.

{ "Swanee River."

{ "Feniculi."

{ "Good-night, Ladies," college songs, with banjo accompaniment, by the Wonderful Tenor Singer and Banjoist, Prof. Philipo.

Curtain down! Lights out!

Everything went off beautifully, from Alan's opening bow to Phil's parting obeisance, with two exceptions,--the small boy fell off the table and sc.r.a.ped his shin, and so had to be comforted, and Kathie got so excited when she knew her turn was coming that she jumped up from her chair and raced round and round the schoolroom table, scuffing her feet on the floor and making her hand squeak on the wooden surface of the table, thereby interfering with the effect of Fraulein Madel and Herr Paulus's vocal efforts. She was captured, however, and brought to reason and good behaviour by the threat of having her name crossed off the programme. With these two trifling exceptions, the performance was most creditable, the _artistes_ were warmly received and enthusiastically applauded,--in one or two instances they even applauded themselves.

Hastily manufactured bouquets of newspaper and paper-muslin were showered upon the stage, and when all was over nurse and cook surprised us by refreshments of cookies and lemonade, served on the schoolroom table. How we enjoyed it! Not a cake was left, nor a drop of lemonade.

Nora was shocked, and I was so glad Miss Marston had not accepted our invitation to be present!

When it was all over, and we were putting away the things, I told Felix what nurse had said, and asked him if he had noticed that papa wasn't well.

Fee looked at me with reflective eyes for a moment or two. "Yes," he said slowly, "come to think of it, the _pater_ _has_ looked rather seedy lately. And another thing," he added, "he hasn't let me make a single reference for him this whole week; and yesterday, when I went in somewhat abruptly, he was sitting at his desk with pages of the Fetich before him, but not writing or reading, just resting his head on his hand. I don't think I've ever seen him do that before."

Again that horrid apprehension came over me.

"Oh, Fee," I said nervously, "do you suppose he is ill,--that anything is going to happen to him? _Do_ tell me frankly what you think!"

Felix bent over the stage property he was doing up, as he answered: "I've thought for some time past that he misses--mother--more than ever." Then he walked off with his bundle.

How utterly ashamed I felt! Nurse had noticed how badly he looked; Felix had, too,--and perhaps he had guessed the trouble truly; Phil, even, might have seen it, and I, papa's eldest daughter, who had promised mamma to take care of him, had been too selfishly absorbed in my own affairs to even think of him! It was no comfort to tell myself that papa was hard to get at; I felt I had neglected him.

"Don't worry, twinnie," Felix said, kindly, coming back to me. "You know care once killed a feline, in spite of his nine lives; so don't you go in for that sort of thing, or you'll get the worst of it. Go to bed now, and have a good sleep; by daylight things will look very much brighter; and at any rate you have your violin lessons ahead of you, and the performance behind you,--two good things. Good-night."

IV.

AND A FETICH.

TOLD BY NANNIE.

BUT my first thought in the morning was of papa, and I wondered what I ought to do for him; how I longed for dear mamma! If even Max were home!--for he was a great favourite with papa, and might be able to persuade him to see Dr. Archard. Though papa is so quiet and gentle, he is really a very difficult person to get to do things that he doesn't want to; and he never wants to have a physician for himself. I was feeling very blue, when something Betty said reminded me of my violin lessons, and then the very thought made me more cheerful.

Betty and I room together, and Nora and Kathie have the next apartment; and what did Nora and Betty do but put their heads together while we were dressing to think of a place in the house where I might go to practise every afternoon without disturbing papa. One or the other of the girls practises every afternoon, and the combination of violin squeaks and piano exercises would, we knew, disturb papa very much. Miss Marston, we were sure, would not permit them to neglect their music,--Nora is a fine musician, and Betty would be if she'd only put the same interest into that that she does into some other things, such as Indian clubs, and sliding down banisters, and playing practical jokes,--and we couldn't plan where my violin hour could best come in, when Nora thought of the old store-room at the top of the house. That was a good idea, because, by closing the door and hanging a thick quilt over it, not much of my sc.r.a.ping would escape to mingle with the piano scale-running, and so annoy papa. The girls' arranging for me in this way quite cheered me up,--the question of practising having troubled me a good deal, for I knew a noise of that kind would seriously interfere with papa's writing, and delay still longer the completion of the Fetich.

Years and years ago, before Phil was born,--indeed, before mamma and papa were ever married,--papa began to write a book, and it is not yet finished, though there are pages and pages of it. Of course it is _very_ deep and _very_ clever, for papa is a great scholar. Max Derwent says that if papa would only finish the book he thinks he knows of a publisher who would accept it at once; and that would be a great help to us, for papa has lost a lot of money this year, and we have to be _very_ economical. That is the reason Fee can't go to college as well as Phil; papa explained this to the boys that day in the study, after Jack had been put out. Dear Jack! he is such a gentle, old-fashioned little fellow, it really seems as if he ought to have been the girl, and Betty the boy.

But, for all that Max said, papa can't seem to get to the end of his work; he writes and re-writes, and keeps making changes all the time.

Sometimes I have wondered if he has worked over it so long that he hates to part with it. The t.i.tle of this great piece of work is "The History of Some Ancient Peoples," or something very like that,--it's about the Egyptians and Phoenicians and Chaldeans; but among ourselves we children call it the Fetich. Long ago Fee gave it that name, because he says it rules the house, and everything and everybody has to give way to it; and he isn't very far wrong, I'm sorry to say. Ever since we older ones can remember, the Fetich has engrossed papa's entire attention, and kept him so occupied that he has had no time for anything else,--not even for his children. In our own home we have to go quietly and soberly about as if in a stranger's house,--to creep softly through the halls and steal up the back stairs, and to subdue our voices when the natural childish impulse is to run gaily and speak out merrily. It has kept our father apart from us and made him almost a stranger to his children; and, as we look back, some of us grudge the hours of dear mamma's time that were spent each day in the study,--away from us,--reading and copying off the Fetich, and helping and encouraging papa.

Dear, blessed mother! what a brave, loving spirit hers was! Even to the last, when she was almost too weak to speak, she would have papa carry her to the study, and, lying there in the invalid-chair, she'd smile at him as he kept looking up at her from his writing. The very last talk we had together,--after she had been taken back to her room,--when we had spoken about the children and she had told me different little points about their dispositions, and some ways in which I might be able to help them after she had gone, she said very earnestly, "And always be very good to your father, Nannie; he will be in sore need of comfort, for he will miss me more than any one else."

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" I cried, choking, "no one _could_ miss you more than we shall!"

Mamma stroked my hand softly as it lay on the bed beside her. "Dear,"

she said presently, "I know my boys and girls will _never_ forget me, not even the very youngest, for they will hear of me from you older ones. Oh, if it had been my Father's will, how gladly would I have remained with you all! But you are all young; life and hope are strong within you, and you love one another. He--your father--is so different; he will grieve--alone--and grow farther and farther from human love and sympathy. Nannie, dear little daughter, remember how very, _very_ happy he has made me all these years, and oh, be good to him, and very patient and loving when I am gone!"

Her very last look was given to papa; her last word was "Jack!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I GAVE A VERY FAINT KNOCK."]

For a good while I did try to do things for him, and to let him see that I loved him; but I had a feeling all the time--as in the hall that night--that he didn't want me near him, and would rather not have me in the study: so gradually I gave up going there, except for a few minutes each morning to ask if he needed anything. But this morning dear mamma's words came back to me, and I felt very guilty as I ran up to the study after breakfast; I had tried faithfully to look after the brothers and sisters, but I had neglected papa; and I am afraid, in the lowness of my spirits, that I gave a very faint knock on the door. After waiting a minute or two, I opened the door, as no answer came, and stepped into the study.

Papa's breakfast, which had been sent up more than half an hour before, lay cold and untasted on his desk, and papa himself knelt on the hearth; there was no fire, and in the empty grate, laid criss-cross, were pages and pages of closely written ma.n.u.script. On the chair beside him, and on the floor, were more pages of ma.n.u.script in bundles. In my father's hand was a match, which he had just drawn and was about to apply to the papers.

My heart gave a tremendous throb that seemed to send it right into my throat, and I sprang forward, crying out, "Oh, papa! _papa!_ surely you are not going to _burn_ the _Fetich_!"