“You dear!” she said, laying her cheek against the old horse, patting her with little loving pats, and Betsy lowered her head and looked at her little mistress in a motherly way.
While Priscilla stood there her father came out to place a medicine-case in the carriage.
“Hullo, little woman,” he said. “What are you doing? Nothing! That’s a dull way of passing your time. Would you like to come with me?”
“Oh!” cried Priscilla, unclasping Betsy and clasping her own small hands in rapture, “may I?”
“Yes, if you like. I am going to Lantig, but I shall be back by tea-time. Hurry in, then, and get ready, and don’t spend an age over your toilet.”
Priscilla laughed delightedly, and flew up to her room. As she passed in and up the stairs, she heard Loveday’s shrill little voice calling to her:
“Prissy, Prissy, _do_ come here! Oh, I do want some one to watch me paint! Just look what I’ve done!”
“Can’t stay,” shouted back Priscilla. “I am going to Lantig with father, and he told me to hurry.”
“Well, somebody _ought_ to stay with me when I’m an--an invalid,” declared Loveday, in an aggrieved tone.
“Oh, well, she’ll be in soon. Go out to the kitchen and show your pictures to Ellen;” and on she ran.
The children had not a real nurse now; Dr. and Mrs. Carlyon were not wealthy people, and when the children were no longer babies Mrs. Carlyon had felt that she must, if possible, manage with only two maid-servants. But Nurse was so fond of her “babies,” as she called them, that she asked to stay on as nurse-housemaid, in the place of Prudence, the housemaid, who was just leaving to be married, and she did so, to the delight and comfort of every one.
Priscilla did not call Nurse now to help her to get ready; she was learning to do a great many things for herself, and her toilet was a very simple one. She passed a brush vigorously over her curls, replaced her sun-hat, plunged her hands into the jug--it was too heavy for her to lift--rubbed the dirt off on the towel, slipped on a clean holland coat, which she found in the drawer, and ran down again.
Loveday was standing at the dining-room door, with a paint-brush in one hand and a cake of paint in the other; her face was streaked with paints of different colours.