[CHAPTER IV.]
PRUE AND BERTHA.
"IT'S snowing still, father. Almost as hard as ever. Will Bertha come, do you think?"
"Shouldn't wonder."
"She told me not to mind, if anything did make her put off. She might be wanted a day or two longer, just at last. But it isn't Bertha's way to mind weather."
"She wouldn't be a child of mine, if she did."
"You don't mean to send and meet her?"
"Cabs enough in Reading, if she comes."
"Anyhow, the room is ready—Bertha's own little room. She says she always loves so to think of that room, when she's nursing her hardest cases. It seems like a sort of rest. And she knows everything there is always the same."
Mrs. Valentine lifted her face from a half-made stocking as she spoke, a sweet elderly face, pale yet fresh, pure and contented, in full enjoyment still of life. The robust elderly man opposite was just as fine a specimen of manhood as she of womanhood, perhaps handsomer, but of far rougher outlines, hale and hearty, vigorous and sunburnt, with broad toil-worn hands.