Having given his advice, the doctor took leave. Soon after he had gone, Kitty made her appearance, charged with a message from Mrs.
Linley's room.
"Hasn't the physic sent your mother to sleep yet?" Mrs. Presty inquired.
Kitty shook her head. "Mamma wants to go away tomorrow, and no physic will make her sleep till she has seen you, and settled about it. That's what she told me to say. If _I_ behaved in that way about my physic, I should catch it."
Mrs. Presty left the room; watched by her granddaughter with an appearance of anxiety which it was not easy to understand.
"What's the matter?" Mr. Sarrazin asked. "You look very serious to-day."
Kitty held up a warning hand. "Grandmamma sometimes listens at doors," she whispered; "I don't want her to hear me." She waited a little longer, and then approached Mr. Sarrazin, frowning mysteriously. "Take me up on your knee," she said. "There's something wrong going on in this house."
Mr. Sarrazin took her on his knee, and rashly asked what had gone wrong. Kitty's reply puzzled him.
"I go to mamma's room every morning when I wake," the child began. "I get into her bed, and I give her a kiss, and I say 'Good-morning'--and sometimes, if she isn't in a hurry to get up, I stop in her bed, and go to sleep again. Mamma thought I was asleep this morning. I wasn't asleep--I was only quiet. I don't know why I was quiet."
Mr. Sarrazin's kindness still encouraged her. "Well," he said, "and what happened after that?"