Suddenly Rosamond gave a little exclamation.
"Nothing about Captain Bertram," she replied. "But I think this must be the old lady they lived with. 'Alicia, widow of the late Major-General Lacy,' etc., etc., 'at Market-Lilford on the 16th November, aged 69.' I am sure it is she, for Gladys's second name is 'Alicia,' and she told me it was 'after Mrs. Lacy.'"
"Poor old lady--she must have been very kind and good. That may explain 'Miss Susan's' apparent indifference. It was fully a fortnight ago, you see."
"Not yet, I think," said Auntie. "We may have worse to tell her, poor child."
"I don't know that it _would_ be worse," said the young girl. "They can't remember their father."
"Still, they have always been looking forward to his coming. If it ends in _good_ news, it will make them--Gladys especially--very happy."
"As for Roger, perfect happiness is already his," said Rosamond. "He asks no more than weak tea and bread-and-butter, Gladys always at hand, a good fire, and nobody to scold him."
"And now, indeed, there lacked nothing to their happiness as long as they lived."--_The Golden Bird._
Walter went off to Nice that night. The children were not told distinctly the object of his journey. They were allowed to know that he might be passing near "the big town by the sea," which poor Mrs. Lacy, in her kind anxiety to make all clear, had pointed out to Gladys on the map; but that was all, for Auntie wished to save them any more of the nervous suspense and waiting of which they had had so much. She wished, too, to save them any suffering that could be avoided, from the fear of the sorrow, really worse than any they had yet known, which she often dreaded might be in store for them.
"Let us make them as happy as ever we can for these few days," she said to Rosamond. "Nothing like happiness for making children strong and well, and they will soon forget all their past troubles."
And Rosamond was only too ready to give her assistance to the kind plan, so that in all their lives Gladys and Roger had never been so much made of. The ladies were too wise to overdo it; they found too that it was very easy to amuse these simple little creatures, who had never known since they were born the slightest approach to "spoiling" or indulgence. Everything pleased them. The mere living in the pretty luxurious house--the waking up in the morning to the sight of the bright dainty room, where already a cheerful little fire would be blazing, for the weather continued exceedingly cold. The tempting "little breakfast" of real bread-and-butter and tea--for both Gladys and Roger found they had got very tired of chocolate--the capacious bath and abundance of hot water--above all, the kind and loving and gentle looks and words which surrounded them--all these would have been enough to make them happy. And a drive in Auntie's beautiful carriage, either into the centre of the town "to see the shops," or now and then to visit one of the wonderful old churches with their mysterious height of roof and softly brilliant windows, and _sometimes_, still better, the beautiful swelling organ music which seemed to them to come from nowhere, yet to be everywhere. Ah! those expeditions were a delight Gladys had never even dreamt of, and which little Roger could scarcely take in. They very much changed their opinion of Paris in those days, and no longer called it "an ugly dirty town," as it had seemed to them in their first experience at the Rue Verte.