had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost—I think I must say quite—believed that I did her good whenever I was near her. Now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl’s that I am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my guardian’s consent, posthaste; and she and Prince made so much of me that there never was anything like it.
Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It was a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters before leaving home.
But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my return at night, “Now, little woman, little woman, this will never do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and take possession of our old lodgings.”
“Not for me, dear guardian,” said I, “for I never feel tired,” which was strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request.
“For me then,” returned my guardian, “or for Ada, or for both of us. It is somebody’s birthday tomorrow, I think.”
“Truly I think it is,” said I, kissing my darling, who would be twenty-one tomorrow.
“Well,” observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously, “that’s a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will go. That being settled, there is another thing—how have you left Caddy?”