"Oh, Prue!"
"You just let go o' my dress, Miss Hecla—" as she bustled along, Hecla clinging still to her skirt. "I ain't got time for talk."
"But please tell me—I do want to know—about Ivy."
"She's opened her eyes; and that's about all. She don't know nobody."
"Doesn't she know Auntie Anne?"
"No—nor nobody."
"Won't she be quite well soon? Darling Mrs. Prue, please tell me!"
"Nobody can't tell. She may, and she mayn't," asserted Prue. "There's a lot o' mischief comes often after that sort o' accident, Miss Hecla. Why, dear me, I've had to do with a girl as fell into a river, and she wasn't never properly herself after, not all her life long she wasn't."
Mrs. Prue shook herself free and went off, and Hecla retreated into the dining-room. Plainly no comfort was to be had in that direction.
Would Ivy, sweet little Ivy, never be properly herself again? The suggestion was vague, and therefore all the more terrible. Hecla scarcely knew what she feared, but she did fear it. And she—she would be the cause. She crouched down in a corner, half-hidden by the heavy window-curtains, and felt very naughty and hopeless.