But Freda had a very pleasant bright manner, and Nurse was quite satisfied with her explanations.

And as the run home had brought back the colour to the little boy's cheeks, nothing much was said as to the fear of his having caught cold.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Part 4_

SOME half an hour or so afterwards, all the party, the children included, a.s.sembled on the lawn for tea.

Nurse had seized the opportunity of Helena's running in with Leigh, to "tidy her up a bit," and Freda too had not objected to a little setting to rights, so that both the girls looked quite in order.

And Willie and Hugh had also removed all traces of their adventures; only Maggie was still rather rumpled and crumpled, but as she was counted a tom-boy at all times, it did not so much matter.

"What became of you all, this afternoon?" asked Mrs. Frere. "We walked down to the bridge to look for you, as one of the men said he had seen you going that way. And I am _sure_ I heard one of you 'cooeying'--did I not? Yet when I called, no one replied."

The children looked at each other. Mrs. Frere felt surprised.

"What is the mystery?" she said, though with a smile.

"Oh," began Freda, "there wasn't any mystery--we were only----" She stopped, for she felt that Helena's eyes were fixed on her, and Freda was not by nature an untruthful child. It was through her heedlessness and wildness that she often got into what she would have called "sc.r.a.pes," from which there seemed often no escape but by telling falsehoods, or at least allowing what was not the case to be believed.

She grew red, and Mrs. Frere, feeling that it was not very kind to cross-question a guest, finished her sentence for her.

"Hiding?" she said. "Were you hiding?" though she wondered why Freda should blush and hesitate about so simple a thing.

"Yes," said Helena quickly, replying instead of Freda, "yes, Mamma, we _were_ hiding--under the bridge."

At the moment she only felt glad to be able to say what _in words_ was true.

For hiding they certainly had been. And Mrs. Frere, thoroughly trusting Helena, turned away and thought no more about it, only adding that it must have been rather dirty under the bridge; another time she would advise them to find a cleaner place.

"I suppose it was 'I spy' you were playing at," she said, and she did not notice that no one answered her.

The rest of the afternoon pa.s.sed quietly enough.

Hugh and Freda were rather unusually quiet, at which their Mother and elder sister rejoiced.

"I do hope," said Sybil, as she drove home with Mrs. Kingley, leaving the younger ones to follow as they had come, "I do hope those Frere children, though they are younger, will have a good influence upon Hugh and the girls, Freda especially. She has been getting wilder and wilder.

And Helena is such a lady-like, well-bred little girl."

"I hope so too," said her Mother. "I own I was a little afraid of our children startling the Freres, but they seem to have got on all right."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Good night, dears," said Mrs. Frere to her three children an hour or so later. "You were happy with your new friends, I hope? I think they seem nice children, and they were very quiet and well-behaved to-day. Leigh, my boy, you look half asleep--are you very tired?"

"My eyes are tired," said Leigh, "and my head, rather."

"Well, off with you to bed, then," she said cheerfully. She would not have felt or spoken so cheerfully if she could have seen into her little daughter's heart.

Nurse too noticed that Leigh looked pale and heavy-eyed.

She said she was afraid he had somehow caught cold. So she gave him something hot to drink after he was in bed, and soon he was fast asleep, breathing peacefully.

"He can't be very bad," thought Helena, "if he sleeps so quietly."

But though she tried not to be anxious about him, she herself could not succeed in going to sleep.

She tossed about, and dozed a little, and then woke up again--wider awake each time, it seemed to her. It was not _all_ anxiety about Leigh; the truth was, her conscience was not at peace; she felt as if she deserved to be anxious about her little brother, for she saw clearly now, how she had been to blame--first, for giving in to the Kingleys in doing what she knew her Mother would not have approved of, and besides, and even worse than that--in concealing the wrong-doing, and telling what was "not quite true" to her trusting Mother.

The tears forced their way into Helena's eyes when she owned this to herself, and at last she felt that she could bear it no longer.

She got softly out of bed without waking Nurse, and made her way to the little room where Willie slept alone.

"Willie," she said at the door, almost in a whisper, but Willie heard her. He, too, for a wonder, was not able to sleep well to-night, and he at once sat straight up in bed.

"Yes, Nelly," he said, in a low, though frightened voice, "what is it?

Is Leigh ill?"

"No," Helena replied; "at least, I hope not, though I'm awfully unhappy about him. It's partly that and partly--everything, Willie--all we did this afternoon. And worst of all," and here poor Nelly had hard work to choke down a lump that began to come in her throat, "I didn't tell Mamma the truth, when she asked what we were doing, you remember, Willie."

"Yes," said Willie, "I remember. You said we were hiding, and so we were."

"But it wasn't quite true the way I let her think it," persisted Helena.

"Even if the words were true, the _thinking_ wasn't. And it has made me so dreadfully unhappy. I didn't know how to wait till the morning to tell her--I know I shan't go to sleep all night," and she did indeed look very white and miserable.

Willie considered; he had good ideas sometimes, though Helena often called him slow and stupid.

"I know what," he said. "You shall write a letter to Mamma--now, this minute. I've got paper and ink and pens and everything, in my new birthday writing-case, and I've got matches. Since my birthday, Papa said I might have them in my room."

For Willie was a very careful little boy. If there was no likelihood of his "setting the Thames on fire," his Father had said once, "there was even less fear of his setting the _house_ on fire," and though Willie did not quite understand about the "Thames"--how could a _river_ burn?--he saw that Papa meant something nice, so he felt quite pleased.

And the next morning, the first thing Mrs. Frere saw on her toilet-table was a note addressed rather shakily in pencil, to "dear Mamma."

It was only a few lines, but it made her hurry to throw on her dressing-gown and hasten to the nursery.

"How is Leigh?" were her first words to Nurse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Willie at once sat straight up in bed._"]

"He's got a little cold in his head, ma'am, but nothing much," was the cheerful reply, and Mamma saw by the child's face that there were no signs of anything worse.

"But, Miss Helena," Nurse went on, "has had a bad night, and her head is aching, so I thought it better to keep her in bed to breakfast."