Terry | Page 2

than the count of the days," said Madam musingly.
Madam Trimleston was a pretty old lady who had soft white hair and sweet blue eyes, and wore handsome lace caps with peachy ribbons in them; and she usually sat in a high-backed arm-chair either at the fire or the window in her own room with Nurse Nancy attending on her. For Madam was very delicate, and since she had been left alone in old Trimleston House she rarely went down into the great rooms below.
"It would make you cry," Nancy would say, "to see her sittin' there all by herself, afther the family she rared, an' them all scatthered about over the four corners of the earth; an' the rest o' them in heaven!"
It is true that Madam had sons holding posts in different lands, but her daughters had "all died on her", as Nancy lamented. However, though old Trimleston House stood in a lonely part of Ireland, between the hills and the sea, yet Madam was not so desolate as might have been supposed, for she was beloved by all the "neighbours" for twenty miles around, and poor and rich made their sympathy felt by her. And everyone was glad when her favourite son in Africa sent home his two children to her care; no one so glad as the dear old granny herself, unless it might be Nurse Nancy.
To tell how the grandmother and nurse, whose hands had once been so full and were now so long empty, went into the deserted nurseries and furbished them up till everything looked as good as new would require a chapter to itself. A handy man was sent for to come two miles and paint up the old rocking-horse which had been standing for years with its nose in a corner of a closet and its sides all blistered with damp; and nine-pins, tops, and marbles were hunted out of drawers and cupboards.
"Mercy me! Look here, madam! If this isn't the dog that Misther Jack broke the ear off knockin' its head against the wall one day and him in a passion!" said Nurse Nancy.
She was afraid to bring forth the dolls, with their associations, but the mother herself went to look for them.
"We are getting a little girl, Nancy," she said, "and we can't have nothing but boys' toys for her to play with."
Nancy nodded her head, but Madam went boldly to the drawer, looked at the dolls with their faded cheeks and glassy eyes, shook out their gay frocks, and laid them back in their place. Nancy said nothing, but when Madam remarked that evening:
"I am writing for one or two new ones. They will be fresher. And you might lock up the old ones and leave them where they are," Nancy knew exactly what her mistress was thinking of.
But that was more than a year ago. The story of how the girl and boy came, and how the two old women, who had many years ago been so clever in the management of children, failed utterly with the "young African savages", as a lady neighbour twenty miles distant described Terry and Turly, need not be told. There had been utter dismay in Trimleston House: and after much struggling with difficulties, Madam had been obliged to yield to the decision of their father and to send them to school.
There had been a summer vacation, the recollection of which made Madam and Nurse Nancy tremble; hence the serious expectation with which they are awaiting at the present moment the arrival of the children for the Christmas holidays.
CHAPTER II
"ONLY MISS TERRY COME BACK TO US!"
"Yes," continued Madam; "from what the good schoolmistress has written to me, and from the child's own letters, I am hoping to find my granddaughter grown into quite a gentle little lady."
A shout from somewhere below the windows interrupted her, a shout so unusual and peculiar that Madam and Nurse Nancy were silenced, and sat listening and looking at one another. More cries followed, astonished, admiring, and then a sound from a little distance of wild, shrill cheering began to come nearer.
Madam and Nurse Nancy stood up and hurried to a window overlooking the drive in front of the house, and then to another through which they could see the avenue approaching it.
There was a hint of dusk in the air, yet enough light to show a strange sight, a horse and car flying along between the trees towards the house, and followed by a little rabble of boys and girls, all clapping their hands and cheering in the wildest delight. The cause of their excitement was easily seen. In the driver's seat sat a small figure with a yellow curly head, her hat blown off and hanging on her shoulders by the strings round her neck, her