“I am so feeble,” replied Mrs. Wingfield, “that I am afraid—”
“Take the baby, then, and I’ll go myself; not a moment is to be lost.”
“No, no; there’s my boy Tom,” cried Mrs. Wingfield, as she saw her son run hastily into her little cottage, which was just opposite to Mrs. Bright’s.
“Oh, send him, in mercy send him!” cried the mother; and her neighbour instantly crossed over to fulfil her wishes, passing Polly as she did so, and looking at her with mingled surprise and scorn, though in too much haste to address her.
“My boy, my own darling!” murmured the anxious mother, pressing her sick child to her bosom, “what will your father say when he hears of this?” Except her low, sad voice, the cottage was so still that the very silence was terrible to Polly; it would have been a relief to have heard the feeble, fretful wail which had made her feel impatient so often.
With pale, anxious face and noiseless step, dreading to meet her mother’s eye, the unhappy girl stole into the cottage. There sat Mrs. Bright, her bonnet thrown back from her head, her hair hanging loose, her gaze fixed upon the child in her arms; whilst the poor little babe, with livid waxen features and half-closed eyes, lay so quiet, and looked so terribly ill, that but for his hard breathing his sister would have feared that his life had indeed passed away.
Mrs. Bright raised her head as Polly entered, and regarded her with a look whose expression of deep grief was even more terrible than anger. She asked no question; perhaps the misery in which she saw the poor girl made her unwilling to add to her suffering by reproach; or perhaps, and this was Polly’s own bitter thought, she considered her unworthy of a word. Whatever was the cause, no conversation passed between them, except a few short directions from the mother about things connected with the comfort of the baby, as poor Polly, with an almost bursting heart, tried to do anything and everything for him.
POLLY IN DISGRACE.
In the meantime Tom had gone for the doctor, though with an unwillingness and desire to delay which had made his mother both surprised and indignant.