“Now, I’ll tell you just what to do,” she said “Go over to the Bethany Home, you take the car out to the Melincourt Road that passes it. Ask for Mrs. Johnson. They have two girls; they put them out when they are twelve. And since you only want some one to amuse the babies and take them out, and she will be growing older all the time, you see, you can bring her up in your ways. Yes, that is what I’d do.”
Mrs. Borden followed the advice. There was a stout, rather vacant looking German girl, a good worker who delighted in scrubbing and scouring and who would make an excellent kitchen maid. The other was Marilla Bond, an orphan with no relatives that any one knew; a fair, nice looking intelligent 21 child, with light curly hair cropped close, rather slim, and with a certain ready, alert look that was attractive.
Mrs. Borden brought her home for a month’s trial. She took to the babies at once, and Jack took to her. Oddly enough, so did Bridget. She had such a quaint sweet way of saying, “Yes’m” and “No’m;” she did what she was told to do with alacrity, she ran up and down stairs on numberless errands. She was a very good reader and at first, Jack kept her busy in this respect. But she wanted to hear about lions and tigers and men killing them and Indian fights and matters that didn’t please the little girl at all. Mother Goose was babyish.
The twins sat on a blanket on the floor and sometimes rolled around a little. She played with them, talked to them and they really listened to the stories that she acted off and laughed gleefully.
“They certainly are intelligent,” Aunt Florence said with pride.
On nice sunny days when it was not very cold she took them out in the carriage. They were carried down and put in it, then brought 22 up again. Their mother “wasn’t going to have any nurse breaking their backs by a fall.”
So when the month of probation was ended, Marilla was bound to Mr. and Mrs. John Borden, to be clothed and fed and sent to school for half a year. She really did like her new home. Only if it wasn’t for Jack! He pinched her sometimes, and once he kicked her but his mother gave him a good trouncing.
The twins had some bread and milk and were put to bed at six. Then Cinderella went down stairs but not to sit in the ashes. She did numerous things for Bridget and they had a cozy dinner together, always a dessert, and they were so good.
“If Jack only wouldn’t run away,” she said. “You see I can’t leave the babies, and I am so afraid he will get lost.”
“Let him get lost then; that’ll bring his mother to her senses, and you tell her.”