She was very tired but she read quite awhile before the gentle snoring began, and she was glad enough to go to bed. 176
They had been home just a week when school opened. It was a comfort to get rid of Jack. They began to settle into quite regular living.
“I’ve just had a fright,” said Mrs. Borden, coming up to her sister’s room. “A man has been here inquiring about school children and I did stretch the truth a little. You see, now children have to go to school until they are fourteen. I simply can’t let Marilla go. I didn’t adopt her nor consider her in any sense my own. A child like that isn’t worth more than her board and clothes. What good would she be to us if we had to get her off at nine in the morning, and then have only an hour in the afternoon. The twins must be taken out, and there’s so much running up and down. She’s a nice honest, truthful child and a born nurse girl. But if I had to send her to school, I’d trot her off to the Home.”
“There is so much to do this winter. When you come to that, she knows enough for ordinary, and later on she could go to evening school. There’s so much shopping and planning, and we must be out a good deal. The twins mightn’t take to a new girl. Let us keep her if we possibly can.” 177
Miss Borden’s lover was to return before Christmas and wanted every thing ready for a speedy marriage. It would be in church with a very small reception afterward. And that was hardly three months’ distance.
Marilla was coming home with the babies one afternoon when two lady callers and a girl were saying adieu and coming down the steps. Yes, that was Ada Brant who had been at Bayside in the summer and at first had been quite friendly with her. Now she looked as if she had never known her.
Maybe that was the way all the girls would feel to one who had been bound-out from an institution. There they had all been on an equality. And somehow the Bordens had not really put her down. Then that lovely Miss Armitage. Why, there had been a place for her at the table, and Jane had waited on her as if she had been a guest!
Perhaps it would be different now. Then came a very bitter knowledge to Marilla Bond. Five years more of this, and wouldn’t people remember she had been Mrs. Borden’s nursemaid? Why, even now she would be glad to be Miss Armitage’s maid. What made the difference? 178
She was to hear more of it that evening. After the babies came in from their outing they were washed, undressed, and a nice warm wrapper put over their nightgown, and then fed. Afterward laid in their crib. They didn’t go to sleep at once but kicked and laughed and chatted in a regular frolic. Phlegmatic babies can be easily trained. Then Marilla came down and waited on the table as Bridget sent various things up on the lift. She was a really charming little waitress.
“Such an odd thing occurred today,” began Mrs. Borden. “John do you know a firm, Davis & Calthorpe, who manufacture something—”