“Mummy, is Dick 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 Dick 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 glass, 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 glass 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 Dick doggedly.  “You can have our buckets when we leave, and my boat, and Amy’s shells.”