The Story of Jessie | Page 4

shan't be ready. If I'd got the time I'd have
whitened the ceiling and put a clean pretty paper on the walls of the
little room."
"Little room!--are--are you giving her--Lizzie's room?" There was a
note of shock or dismay in Thomas's voice.
"Yes," said Patience shortly. "The child must have a room, of course,
and there isn't any other!" she answered shortly, because it hurt her to
say what she had to, and she knew it would hurt Thomas even more to
hear it. Lizzie's little bedroom had never been looked into by him since

Lizzie had run away and left them, and Patience herself had only gone
in now and then, when, for the sake of her own pride in her cottage, and
to prevent her neighbour's comments, the window had to be cleaned
and a fresh muslin blind put up.
She returned to the room now, and with a few deft touches, a turn and a
twist or two, she moved the little bed and the bits of furniture out of
their usual positions, and into some they had never occupied before.
"Now it won't remind him so much," she said softly to herself, "it looks
quite different," and she went out leaving door and window wide, for
the sun and the soft breeze to play through.
With this new joy and the music she carried in her heart, her hands and
feet flew through their work, so that by three o'clock the spotless stairs
were scrubbed, and the neat kitchen made even neater, and Patience
herself was ready to change her gown and put herself tidy.
Thomas was still busy in the garden. She did not know what about, but
soon after she had gone up to her room she heard him calling her.
"What is it, father?" she called back. "I am up-stairs."
"I--I've got a little rose-bush that I've been bringing on in a pot, I--I
thought," he concluded shyly, "I--thought the little maid would fancy it,
perhaps, in her room."
A mist of tears dimmed Patience's eyes for a moment. "Bless his dear
old heart," she said to herself softly, "how he thinks of everything."
Aloud, she said heartily, "Why, of course she would, father. She'd be
sure to love it, a real plant of her own! Will you put it up there, on the
window-ledge? I've got my dress off, and I can't come for a minute,"
she added casually, in a tone very different from the eagerness with
which she listened to hear if he did so.
"It would be a good time for him to break through, and go into the
room again," she thought to herself. But Thomas did not fall in with her
little scheme.

"I'll put it on the top stair, where you can see it," he called up, "and I'll
go and tidy myself now, and make a start for the station. I shan't be so
very much too soon."
"Only half-an-hour or so," said Patience to herself with a smile. Aloud
she said, "I think you're wise, father, then you'll be able to take it easy
on the way, and to explain to Station-Master all about it, in case she
don't come, and I expect you'll find she won't be here for a day or two."
They kept on telling each other that, to try and prevent themselves from
counting on it too much.
"No, I don't see how she can come to-day, but I'll step along to see the
train come in; it'll satisfy our minds. We shouldn't feel happy to shut up
the house and go to bed if we didn't know for certain."
So Thomas started off with a calm, businesslike air, outwardly, but
inside him his heart was beating fast with expectation, and his step
grew quicker and quicker as soon as he was out of sight of his own
cottage windows.
He slackened his pace a little when he came within sight of the station,
for it looked as quiet and sleepy as though no train was expected for
ages yet; and the eager, shy old man felt that the men at the station
would laugh at him for arriving more than half-an-hour before any train
was due. For a moment he decided to turn away and walk in some other
direction until some of the time had passed, but the seats on the
platform looked very restful, and the platform, bathed in the soft
afternoon sunshine, looked wonderfully peaceful and inviting. There
was not a sign of life, or a sound or a movement, except that of the little
breeze ruffling the young leaves on the chestnuts in the road outside.
"I'll explain to Mr. Simmons that I come early so as to be able to tell
him about the little