Mrs. Cameron was standing in the bedroom doorway. She held out a box of fascinating doll’s tea-things.
’Those are rather pretty, aren’t they?’ she said. ’We almost decided on a blue set, but then these little pink flowers seemed so fresh-looking we took it.’
Flossie sent a devouring gaze to the beautiful boxful through the bars of her cot. Then she squeezed her eyes up tightly again.
The mother went away, and the darkness deepened in the room, and Floss lay gazing with hard eyes at a patch of light thrown from the living-room lamp upon the ceiling.
Her heart swelled more and more; she pictured miserable scenes in which, while the rest of the family flaunted about in silk, she, Floss, was attired in rags and had crusts only to eat.
’Only,’ she muttered to herself, ’I won’t eat them, and then I’ll die, and p’r’aps she’ll be sorry.’
’I think I’ll lie down quietly on your bed for an hour, Miss Browne,’ the mother’s voice was saying; ’it will do my head good. Yes, thank you, I have the bottle of lavender water here; I never travel without getting a bad head.’
Miss Browne shook up the pillows and left her; this idea of making capital out of the headache was her own. ’Flossie never can bear any one to suffer,’ she said. ’I always remember when I first came here, and she was only about three, some one cut a snake in half along the road. And what must the child do but rush from us and pick up one half—by the mercy of God, the tail half! You remember, Hermie? Bart, my love, you can’t have forgotten that shocking day? She came running back to us crying dreadfully, and with that horrible thing in her hands. "Mend it, mend it!" she sobbed "oh, poor sing, poor sing, mend it twick!"’
So Mrs. Cameron went to lie on the bed far from Floss, and to sigh occasionally, once or twice to moan, as indeed she could, for her headache was severe.
At the sighs there were restless movements in the cot; at the first moan the little figure climbed over the rail.
’I don’t mind bathing your head,’ she said, her voice a little unsteady. ’Is it hurting you much?’
’Yes,’ sighed the mother, ’it is very bad.’
Floss dipped her handkerchief in the water-jug, and kept laying it softly on the aching forehead. For ten minutes Mrs. Cameron allowed herself to be thus ministered to, and presently the child sat down on the bed, almost within the arm that yearned to circle her. ’Would you like me to fan it?’ she whispered. ’Fanning is good.’