“No, no; you shall tell him yourself,” she exclaimed with sudden vehemence; “you are going to get well, you must, you shall!”
The nurse looked at her warningly, and she was silent again while Lion’s excitement subsided into a drowsy state which lasted till the doctor came.
He looked in amazement at the strange figure by the bed, but for once in her life Mrs. Beresford had no thoughts for herself.
“He is better, is he not?” she said eagerly, but the doctor shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I shall telegraph for your husband to-night.”
The days passed on, and one evening a carriage dashed up to the door and springing out almost before it had stopped, Paul Beresford seized upon the doctor, who came forward to greet him.
“Better,” was the answer, and waiting to hear no more he dashed upstairs and opened the door of his boy’s room.
“How are you, my darling?” he said eagerly.
His wife turned away with a sudden pang. It was not likely that he would recognise her for she had sent him no news of her accident, but for the first time she felt that he was dearer to her than the friends for whom she had once sacrificed his happiness.
“Daddy,” he said, “mamma has forgiven me, but you must forgive me too; it was all my fault, you know, that she was burnt.”
“Lena!” cried Paul in astonishment, as he gazed at the white-capped figure by the window.
“You told me to take care of her,” said Lion mournfully; “but she has had to take care of me all the time!”
Lena had hidden her face in her hands, but in a moment she felt her husband’s arms round her and knew that a new life had begun for them both.
“Are you so very sorry that mamma was burnt?” asked Lion wistfully, as he saw the tears in his father’s eyes.
“No, dear, he is glad,” said his mother softly, “because there is a fire in my heart that will, I hope, burn up all the selfishness.”
“What fire comes in people’s hearts?” asked Lion in wonder, and with a look that made her scarred face more beautiful than it had been in all the perfection of its bloom, his mother answered—
It is remarkable what pretty bits of detail we often come across in old cottages; unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to ascertain for certain whether these are “in situ” or whether they have originally belonged to more important buildings and have found their way down to the cottages, just as ladies’ dresses find themselves after some time in more humble hands than those for which they were originally intended. A beautiful partition, or screen, which we give from a small farmhouse or cottage at Toppesfield, in Essex, is a case in point; it may have always formed a portion of the building in which it now stands, or it may have been removed from some more stately one. It is singularly well preserved, but seems to be almost too elaborate and costly a work to have been made for a house which is little more than a cottage. However, as we have seen from examples at Clare and Newport, the exteriors of cottages were sometimes elaborately adorned; and if the exterior, why not the interior?