For a while no one else came forward. Few indeed were in a position to do so. Most of the Old Maxham people were more or less poor; and not many could boast the possession of an unused room,—the doctor least of all, since he had not only six small children, but one or two permanent invalids as patients.
Then it was that Miss Perkins astonished everybody by stepping into the breach. She had been present for a short time, had heard everything, had listened to what everybody had to say. And when the world in general, as represented down at the Point, had reached the end of its wits, Miss Perkins spoke.
She had a spare room, she said; and she didn't suppose any lodgers would be likely to come yet awhile. The poor woman might come and sleep in that room just for a few days, till she was well enough to go on her journey to her home. Of course she'd got a home somewhere, and friends expecting her. Yes, it meant a lot of trouble, of course. Folks had got to take trouble sometimes. Miss Perkins didn't know as she was one who minded trouble particular. Anyway, if the woman hadn't got nowhere else to go to, why, there was the bedroom ready.
"That's splendid of you, Miss Perkins!" the village doctor said impulsively.
Miss Perkins twitched the end of her long nose, and sniffed. She didn't know as there was anything out of the common, she said, in letting a room be used, when it wasn't wanted, by a poor thing as hadn't got anywhere else to go.
"Only, it may mean—Well, of course I can't tell you exactly how soon she'll be fit to move," suggested the doctor. "That blow on the head might mean mischief; and if fever set in—"
Miss Perkins didn't see as she had any call to be expecting evils.
"No, no; I only thought it right to warn you about possibilities. But at the worst she could be taken to the hospital. I'm afraid so long a drive in her present state would be a serious risk." The doctor might well fear this, since the nearest hospital was fifteen miles off. "Well, I can only say you're a splendid woman, Miss Perkins."
Miss Perkins might have been inwardly gratified; but she received the praise with outward disdain. And when one or two minor arrangements had been made, she set off to make things ready at home.
She would have found it difficult to explain why she had offered her room: still more why, having offered it, she should feel positively ashamed of her own generosity, and should shrink from telling her niece. Something in the pale face of the unconscious half-drowned woman, friendless and forlorn, had appealed to the softer side of her nature, and to some extent she had acted on impulse. Certainly, no one would have expected Miss Perkins so to rise to the needs of another; and perhaps it was this very knowledge of having done the unexpected which made her feel bashful.