A Great Peril

by Carl Brickett

“It’s so tedious lying here, Martha, this bright, beautiful afternoon. Haven’t you a long story, something I have never heard before, to tell me to pass the time till papa comes home?” 

Old Martha looked up from her sewing, with a fond smile at her young mistress. 

“It is too bad, Miss Helen, that you should have sprained your ankle just now the fine weather is here. So you’d like a story? Let me see.” 

As she spoke a sudden expression of resolve entered the old nurse’s face, and after looking thoughtful a moment, she said: 

“I have one in my mind which I have meant to tell you for a long while. Your papa gave me permission to do so whenever I thought best; but, dear, jealousy and hatred are mixed up in it, and I never like to speak of such things to you. But you are old enough now, and as it is about your mother, it is only right you should hear.” 

Helen leaned back against her soft cushions, and Nurse Martha began: 

“Years ago, when I was only a mite of a child, Mrs. Grangely—your father’s mother—lost her baby girl. My father was gardener at ‘Mile’s Court,’ as her place was called, and often the sad-faced lady would come to our humble cottage and take me on her knee and pet and caress me. After a time, when I had grown to be about twelve, she asked my mother to let me go and live at the Court.… Read More