Page:Across the Stream.djvu/56

46 just about to take the medicine vat makes it better. Do not tell any one, dear Archie, that poor Miss Schwarz is ill. I wish to treble nobody. Poor Miss Schwarz naiver geeve troble if she can 'elp. Ach, you have your pen! Good-night, my deear."

Archie fled down the passage to the nursery with terror giving wings to his heels. This Miss Schwarz angry one moment, and affectionate and effusive the next, was a new and a more awful person than the one he was acquainted with, and he felt sure she must be very ill indeed. It would be a terrible affair if Miss Schwarz was found dead in her bed, in spite of her medicine, just because he had not told anybody that she was ill, and so a doctor had not been fetched. There would be a burden on his conscience for ever if he did not tell somebody. He burst into the nursery with a wild look behind him, to make sure that Miss Schwarz was not following him in her evening rustling dress.

"Oh Blessington," he cried, "Miss Schwarz is ill: do go and see what is the matter. I went to the school-room for my pen, and she was sitting by the fire, all red, and angry, and then polite, mixing her medicine."

Blessington got up from her rocking-chair.

"Eh, I'll go and see," she said.

"Don't tell her I told you," said Archie.

"Nay, of course I won't. Now you begin your undressing, and I'll be back very soon."

Excited and frightened and yet hugely interested, Archie stood at the door of his room listening. Suddenly he heard the sound of Miss Schwarz's voice raised almost to a scream. Then there came the crash of a glass, and the ringing of a bell, while still Miss Schwarz's voice gabbled on, shrill and guttural. Trembling, and yet unable to resist the call of his curiosity, he stole to the corner of the nursery passage,