CHAPTER X

Claimed

POOR little Gypsy lay for many days in partial unconsciousness and in great pain. Her delirium was trying to witness: "Oh, save me! Save me! Agony is coming. I didn't mean to disobey her. Run, quick, quick! It's going away from us. I will be good, if only I can see it. Oh, keep me, it's so dark, so hot!"

Helen Scott never left her, and then, one afternoon, very weak and very exhausted, Gypsy came back to the full consciousness of her surroundings. She gazed round the room with languid interest; there was a bright fire burning in the grate; flowers and grapes on a small table close to her, and looking down upon her with a sweet smile, a tall slight girl in navy blue serge, with a wealth of brown hair coiled round a proud and shapely head.

Helen Scott was beautiful. She had not the sparkling vivacity and brilliant colouring of her sister, but there was an earnestness and fire in her grey eyes, softness and determination in her sensitive lips, and a sweet gravity in her tone and manner which contrasted favourably with the flippancy and careless levity of the young widow.

"Your face and tone are a silent protest against my love of fun," Mrs. Webster would often say, and perhaps it was so. Yet Helen could cast aside her stateliness when alone with those she really loved, and when her face lightened, and her laugh rang out, she was irresistible.

[Illustration: "WHERE AM I?"]

"Well, darling, you feel better, don't you? Do you know where you are?"

"I'm very comfortable," said Gypsy, with a little sigh. "Where's Gubby?"

"Do you want her? She came to see you the other day, and would have stayed altogether, only one of your brothers sprained his ankle, and she left me to take care of you."

Then Gypsy looked puzzled, and pushed her hair off her forehead with a hot little hand.

"I don't remember. Where am I?"

Helen sat down by her side and took hold of her hand.

"Don't talk, darling; but listen. You and Irene lost your way, and came to our house. We took you in, and put you to bed, and you have been very ill. We could not find out where you lived at first, so we advertised in the newspaper, and the same day your brother, Mr. Thurston, rode over to inquire about you. He took Irene back to her home, but you were too ill to be moved, and so you have stayed on with us. Your brother comes over to see you very often, and you must make haste and get well, because they want you home again."

Gypsy pondered over this explanation. Feeling it was satisfactory, she turned over on her side and went fast asleep.

When she awoke, Victor was standing by her bedside.

"Well, little one, do you know who I am?"

"The Ogre," said Gypsy with a smile, and holding out her hand, which looked very small and white.

"That is my character," said Victor rather grimly, looking straight at Helen standing by.

She smiled.

"The puzzle is solved. We wondered for a long time who the Ogre could be. You have been much in her thoughts."

"When will you be ready to come home?" Victor asked, looking at his little sister very gravely. "The boys are clamouring for you, and Miss Gubbins is quite lost without you. Shall I take you home to-night?"

Gypsy looked from one to the other in doubt, but Helen spoke:

"Not to-night, Gypsy. We must get a little more flesh upon your bones before we send you back. The boys will think we have been starving you."

Another voice now made itself heard.

"May I come in and see the little resurrection? Oh, Mr. Thurston, I did not know you were here. Good-evening; have you swooped down upon us to carry our treasure off? I owe you a grudge for tearing from my arms the little dark-haired 'mistake,' as I called her. How is she? Why are some people so indifferent to their offspring, I wonder? Did they give you as much as a 'Thank you' for bringing her back to them? You must know I adore children, and feel very aggrieved at Helen's selfish monopolisation of this little pet."

Helen's brow contracted, but she made room for her sister to come to Gypsy's side, and Mrs. Webster bent down and kissed and fondled Gypsy with great effusion.

"You poor dear little tiny atom of a creature, all eyes and mouth! What a time you have gone through! Tell your brother you will not leave us yet. Tell him we want to mother you, and hear your ringing laugh about the house. He shall not come and steal you away, like the wicked Ogre he is!"

She glanced up laughingly into Victor's impenetrably grave face, and made a pretty picture with her golden head touching the tiny one on the pillow, and her arms encircling the sick child.

Gypsy regarded her with great composure, but with a little curiosity.

"I don't know you," she said. "I don't think I've seen you before."

"Oh, you darling! How naïve children are! You haven't known any one around you whilst you have been so ill. I have often stolen in to have a look at you when the dragon who guarded you so closely was off her watch. Must you be going, Mr. Thurston? Now I insist upon your coming into the drawing-room and having a cup of tea before you leave. Don't say no. It is all ready; it is the least we can offer you."

She rustled out of the room, and Victor, stooping to kiss his little sister, followed her.

Helen came back to the bedside again.

"Tired, darling, are you not? I am going to give you some nice chicken jelly, and you mustn't talk. We shall have plenty of time for that by-and-by!"

Day by day Gypsy gained strength, and soon was quite convalescent. Miss Gubbins came over several times to see her; but her time was much occupied at home, and Claud's accident had taken up a great deal of her attention. Helen assured her that she loved nursing Gypsy, and was determined not to let her go till she was obliged.

And Gypsy, though anxious to be with her brothers again, was quite content with her surroundings. One afternoon, when she was sitting up in a large easy chair, she said, with a little sigh to Helen:

"Do you think it's no good for me to look for the Holy Thing any more?"

It was the first time she had touched upon the subject; but Helen knew all about it, and replied gently:

"Do you want very much to find it, darling? What good will it do you?"

Gypsy pondered for a minute.

"It will show me God is pleased with me, won't it? Besides, I have learnt the text that says, 'Seek Me early, and ye shall find Me.' We must find, the Bible says so."

"What do you think the Holy Thing is, Gypsy?"

"I think," the child said, in an awed whisper, "that it is a light that leads us straight to Jesus, and I want to see Him. Gubby says she thinks Galahad saw a bit of heaven, and went straight into it. I don't want to go to heaven, but I want to see Jesus down here. And if I could find the Holy Thing, I believe it would show me Him. He did show Himself in the Bible to people, didn't He? Oh! Don't you think if I try again I might one day see Him?"

"Do you love Jesus, Gypsy?"

"Yes, everybody does, don't they? I try hard to be good."

"And are you one of His little children?"

Gypsy was silent; then she said, "Has Jesus any naughty children? I'm not always good, you know, and sometimes I'm afraid of being shut outside the gold gates; that's why I want to find Jesus. I mean to ask Him something."

"What is it?"

Gypsy's tone was very earnest. "I mean to ask Him to promise me faithful that He will let me come inside heaven on the Judgment Day."

"What do you know about that?"

"Gubby has a very old picture Bible, and the boys and me like the Judgment pictures, but they're very frightening, and there are some children hiding under some stones, and a lot of people tearing their hair, and there's fire and smoke, and great cracks and holes in the earth. I dream about it ever so often, and I wake up just as I'm trying to creep under a stone. It's dreadful."

"But, Gypsy, darling, you need not wait till you see Jesus to ask Him to save you from that. You can ask Him now in this room. He is here, though you can't see Him."

"But I want to see Him," persisted the child rather querulously, for her weakness made her fretful, "and I'm sure the Holy Thing will let me find Him!"

Helen, seeing the rising flush on her cheek, forbore to say any more; and Gypsy did not allude to the subject again.

Only when Victor came to see her, a few days after, and asked her if he could do anything for her, she replied promptly:

"Yes, read me about the Holy Thing."

He laughed when Helen, without a word, handed him Tennyson's poem. But he sat down, and in a soft and mellow voice read the Holy Grail from beginning to end.

Gypsy listened with knitted brows.

"It's dreadful difficult how you read it," she remarked severely: "Gubby always makes it easy to us, and leaves out the long words."

"Gubby is a miracle! I cannot hope to be as clever as she. Well, you little oddity, hasn't it satisfied you?"

"Have you ever tried to find it?"

The question was asked rather breathlessly.

"No, nor do I want to. The world is too wicked, Gypsy; that sign has been taken away from us! We don't live in King Arthur's days. We see no visions now!"

"Sometimes I think the older days were best," said Helen gravely. "We are so easily and readily satisfied with all that goes on around us. We have no pilgrimages to teach us self-denial, no quests except for earthly treasures and ambitions. It is those who think least of themselves that strive to reach a high goal. And I suppose the sin of our age is self-assertion and self-satisfaction."

"You are a philosopher, Miss Scott," said Victor, smiling at her earnest tone and kindling eyes.

Gypsy struck in rather irrelevantly:

"Will Sir Perceval teach me lessons, now I've had a birthday?"

Her brother shook his head.

"Miss Gubbins will teach you for a good time yet, you mustn't want to leave her. She is very fond of you."

"Yes, I like Gubby, but I like Miss Helen too. Will she come and see us when I get home?"

"Perhaps she will if you ask her nicely."

Conversation was interrupted here by the entrance of Mrs. Webster. She generally found her way to Gypsy's room when she had visitors, and somehow or other if Victor was there, he soon followed her to the drawing-room. He certainly paid his little sister wonderful attention, for he was over to inquire after her two or three times every week; and before long he was almost looked upon as one of the family. He did not urge Gypsy's removal, he seemed quite content that she should remain with her new friends, and Miss Gubbins had at last to remonstrate very seriously with him.

"Gypsy is quite well enough to be moved by this time, it is trespassing on their kindness in having her."

"They are two idle women," he returned, with an easy shrug of his shoulders; "and both tell me Gypsy is a source of great amusement and interest to them. Why should we deprive them of her just yet?"

"I do not like the child to be nursed by strangers," said Miss Gubbins, rather stiffly; "she is my charge, and if you will not have her moved home yet, I shall leave you and the boys, and go to her."

"That is an awful threat! You know you have me in your power. I would not be left in this house two days with those imps of mischief without your protection. When do you want her back? Next week?"

"To-morrow," replied Miss Gubbins firmly; "you are going over there this afternoon, so you can tell them I will come in the close carriage for her, at any time that suits them best."

Miss Gubbins had her way, and the next day Gypsy took leave of her friends with much regret.

Helen received a very tight hug, and was made to promise that she would come and see the boys very soon.

"And may I not come too?" asked Mrs. Webster, bending over Gypsy with one of her radiant smiles.

Then Gypsy made a very blunt reply:

"You can come and see the Ogre if you like. Miss Helen belongs to me, the boys will like her, I know."

"Don't you like Mrs. Webster?" asked Miss Gubbins, as she was driving away in great satisfaction at having the little girl once again under her wing.

"No," said Gypsy, nestling against the kind arms round her; "I like Miss Helen, she's always the same, but sometimes Mrs. Webster doesn't take any notice of me at all, and she's cross to Trixy—he's such a dear little dog, Gubby—she kicked him yesterday! I don't like her at all."

[Illustration: THEY TALKED AS ONLY CHILDREN CAN.]