“Seen who?” I asked.
“Cherry and the boys. I’ve been to them. I must help you, and I don’t believe I shall catch the measles. It isn’t my way to take infection easily. And I thought I would settle the matter by going in without your leave. So now it is no use keeping me away from them any longer; and if I were to be ill, you wouldn’t blame yourself.” Then with wistful looks she added, “Say you forgive me.”
Sorry as I was, I did not know how to be angry. The girl’s eagerness to help sprang so entirely from loving and unselfish motives. Better that a hundred times, I thought, than to have her like Churton, bent only on taking care of herself. Yet when, an hour or two later, she said anxiously, “Do you really think I was wrong?” I answered, “Not right, Maimie.”
“But I can’t be sorry,” she said. “It does make me so happy to help you.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “It is all your love for me; and the wish to help is all right. But obedience would have been more right.”
She gave me a kiss and turned away, half smiling, half sighing.
It really did seem for a while as if Maimie would escape. The two little boys were well again, and Cherry was out of her room, only rather pulled down still. We were beginning to talk about soon being safe people for friends to visit.
And then Maimie seemed unwell; and she had a heavy cold; and suspicious signs appeared. The doctor one day looked doubtful; and next day he came again and ordered her to bed; and the third day we knew that measles once more was in full swing.
“O dear, I am sorry,” Maimie said in distress. “It will just give trouble to everybody. But please don’t stay in my room, Aunt Marion. I’ll just do as I’m bid, and keep quiet and warm for three or four days; and I dare say it will soon go off.”
Privately I feared she might be in for a worse attack than she expected. Maimie was a feverish subject. And my fear proved only too well grounded.