“I don’t call it funny with their hundred and fifty wants,” sniffed Bridget.
Marilla turned faint now and then but for several days she was not sent out with the children. Miss Armitage came over every day to inquire about both invalids. Mrs. Vanderveer dozed a good deal and the numbness seemed crawling further up her body.
“She may have another stroke and she may go just this way,” said Mrs. Holmes, “I wouldn’t give her more than a month at the longest. I’ve seen it so many times. But it is merciful for them not to last years.”
It was mid-October then. The seamstress proved a treasure. Garments were completed and laid away.
“I want most of the work finished up in November,” said Mrs. Borden, “then we can plan all the other matters.”
“I shall have to look up some one else. I 210 want a nurse to take up the children in the morning and wash and dress them, and they must go out. They’re losing all their lovely weather. Marilla doesn’t seem to get along at all. If she’s going to develop some heart trouble she will just be good for nothing. Of course, when I took her she seemed healthy enough, and it was the best thing to do then. John has had some good luck this fall and we don’t need to think of saving up money for the mortgage. I could afford a regular nurse, and it would ease me up so much. I don’t suppose they’d take Marilla back at the Home.”
“Talk to John about it if; we could find a new place for her. Why, she would make a nice little waitress. If you could keep three girls,” laughingly.
“Dear me, we must not spread out too rapidly, and somehow I’d hate to give her up. She trains the children so nicely. And have you noticed how sort of gentlemanly Jack is growing toward her? He was real rude.”
Jack had experienced many qualms of conscience about throwing the ball that day, but Marilla made no reference to it. Still she might tell Bridget, she and Bridget were such 211 cronies, and Bridget would make an awful fuss.
“Marilla,” he said one night when she was getting him ready for bed—“I didn’t mean to hurt you that day with the ball—you know. I didn’t think girls were so tender.”