Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Juvenile fiction; Spaniards -- England -- Juvenile fiction
Nesta found herself seated beside Angela, and quick as thought, it
seemed to her, they were flashing through the summer air, past Mrs
Hogg's cottage, where the boys, Ben and Dan, raised the loudest and
heartiest "Hooray!" and "Hurroa!" that Angela had ever heard. The
ponies pricked up their ears at the sound, and flew faster than ever, up
the village high street, past the station, and up and up, a little
slower now, the steep hill where Nesta and Mary Hogg had walked side by
side; then through the portcullis, and into the courtyard of the castle.
Then indeed a new shyness came over Nesta. It was like a troubled,
hopeless, despairing sinner, so she thought, being led into heaven by an
angel.
"I'm not fit--I'm not really," she said, and she tugged at Angela's
hand, as if she would refuse to go in.
"Oh, you are fit enough," said Angela, "you are my friend."
When they got inside, Angela said something to a man who was standing
near in livery, and then they went down a passage, where they met no
one, up some low steps, along another passage and then a door was flung
open, and Angela and Nesta entered. They entered a pretty bedroom,
furnished as Nesta had never seen a bedroom before. Angela went up to a
girl who was sitting by the window sewing.
"Clements," she said, "this is my friend. I want you to put her into
one of my pretty dresses, so that she may come down to dinner with me.
Attend to her and see to everything she wants; she will sleep here
to-night. This room leads out of my room, dear," she said, giving Nesta
another smiling glance, and then she left her.
Clements dressed Nesta in white, and she would have thought on another
occasion that she had never looked so nice. But she was really past
thinking of how she looked, for somehow Angela's treatment was awaking
something different within her, something which had never, even on that
night when her mother was so terribly ill, been truly awakened before.
She looked humble and very sad when Angela came back to her.
"You look quite sweet," said Angela, giving her a kiss. "Come along
downstairs. By the way, I have sent a telegram to Marcia to tell her
that you are all right, and that I am bringing you back to-morrow."
"Home?" said Nesta.
"Well, to your mother. That will make you happy, won't it?"
"Mothery!" said Nesta, and there was a lump in her throat.
"I'll tell you all about it after dinner. I have excellent news for
you," said Angela.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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