"Oh, you are good for some time yet, only you must not make the slightest exertion. Cynthy, how long can you stay?"
"Ten days or so. Then I have to go over on the Creek," she answered laconically.
"That will do." Then he gave sundry charges to Miss Beers, and left the remedies she was to use, but that lady knew what was meant.
Mrs. Westbury beckoned the nurse to her when he had gone.
"Don't tell Laverne," she said. "Don't say anything about——"
"That's cruel. Why, she ought to know and be prepared."
"No, no; I will not have a word said. I cannot explain, no one can. And if she took it hard, don't you see, it would drive me wild and shorten my days. I'm all worn out. And she will be provided for."
Everybody was kind and solicitous, sending in cooked food, offering to sit up at night, but Miss Beers was equal to all demands. The sick woman really did improve. Laverne hovered about her mother, read to her out of her geography and Peter Parley's history, as well as the sweetest hymns out of the hymn book. Jimmy Cox came over and did the chores, provided the wood, took Verne out on his sled, and the days passed along. Jason Chadsey returned. Miss Beers had to go her way, and a neighbor came in to do what was needed. One day, before the minister and the Squire, she gave her child to Jason Chadsey, who promised to care for her and educate her, and keep her from all harm.
"You both know that I loved her mother and would gladly have married her in the old days, but untoward fate intervened. I could find no trace of the child's father. She has no near relatives to care for her, so I shall be father to her, and Heaven may judge me at the last."
He was holding the child on his knee that evening, "You are to be my little girl always," he said, with tender solemnity. "You shall be made happy as a little bird. And if you will only love me——"