ich appeared to have some reference to my
concealment. Something would be said about my birthday present, and my
brothers would ask me if I had made up my mind what I should buy with it,
or they would tease me about my sudden fancy for spending two days
together with my grandmother, and ask me if I was not in a hurry to go
to see her again. I grew irritable and suspicious, and more and more
unhappy, and before long those about me began to notice the change. My
father and mother feared I was ill--'Nelly is so unlike herself,' I heard
them say. My brothers openly declared 'there was no fun in playing with
me now, I had grown so cross.' I felt that it was true--indeed both
opinions were true, for I really _was_ getting ill with the weight on my
mind, which never, night or day, seemed to leave it.

"At last one day my father told me that he was going to drive into the
little town where my grandmother lived, the next day, and that I was to
go with him to see her. I noticed that he did not ask me, as usual, if I
would like to go; he just said I must be ready by a certain hour, and
gave me no choice in the matter. I did not want to go, but I was afraid
of making any objection for fear of their asking my reasons, so I said
nothing, but silently, and to all appearance I fear, sulkily, got ready
as my father desired. We had a very quiet drive; my father made no
remarks about my dullness and silence, and I began to be afraid that
something had been found out, and that he was taking me to my
grandmother's to be 'scolded,' as I called it in my silly little mind.
I glanced up at his face as I sat beside him. No, he did not look severe,
only grave and rather anxious. Dear father! Afterwards I found that he
and my mother had been really _very_ anxious about me, and that he was
taking me to my grandmother, by her express wish, to see what she thought
of the state of matters, before consulting a doctor or trying change of
air, or anything of that kind. And my grandmother had particularly asked
him to say nothing more to myself about my own unsatisfactory condition,
and had promised him to do her utmost to put things right.

"Well--we got to my grandmother's--my father lifted me out of the
carriage, and I followed him upstairs--my grandmother was sitting in the
drawing-room, evidently expecting us. She came forward with a bright kind
smile on her face, and kissed me fondly. Then she said to my father she
was so glad he had brought me, and