“Not very. Some days I don’t feel in a working humor. I had only two calls this afternoon. Will you have a cup of tea?”
“Yes; when have you been to the Bordens?”
“Yesterday.”
“And how are the invalids?”
“Mrs. Vanderveer is sinking in a comatose state; she doesn’t suffer, which is a great blessing toward the last. As for Marilla”—she made a pause.
“Well—” inquiringly.
“I’m not satisfied, she has such a blue, tired look. But she is about as usual. Dr. Richards, I want her.”
Something in the tone touched him. It seemed the cry of motherhood.
“Well, wouldn’t they give her up?”
“I really think they would; a friend came to see if they did not want her nursemaid, a nice well trained girl of twenty; an excellent seamstress. She is going to California. Mrs. Borden told me this as we were down in the hall. Dr. Baker said something about the child’s health that rather startled her. But 214 before we could have any discussion another visitor called. She thinks Marilla doesn’t have anything much to do; but the babies are a constant care. They want to be entertained every minute of the time. Violet is developing quite a temper and slaps her little nurse. All her mother said was ‘Violet, that’s naughty.’ But you should have seen Pansy speak some Mother Goose rhymes. Marilla had been training her. The gestures, the roll of the eyes, the coquettish turn of the head was the daintiest thing you ever saw. Then she repeated—‘Where are you going, my pretty maid?’ and she had a little milk pail on her arm, and she managed to keep the two parts wonderfully distinct—it was remarkable in a child not three years old, and when she said—‘Then I won’t marry you, my pretty maid’ and answered so pertly—‘Nobody asked you, sir, she said,’ it would have done credit to an exhibition. Her mother sprang up and kissed her rapturously, crying—‘Isn’t she the dearest and sweetest thing and the smartest! Think of her learning that and acting it off so completely, and not three years old! She is smarter than Violet’—and then Violet set up 215 such a howl! Her mother pacified her by saying Marilla should tell her a piece, and after several efforts Cinderella did induce her to say by a great deal of prompting ‘Milkman, Milkman, where have you been?’ Think of the wear on the child’s nerves, and she looked so tired. I really couldn’t stand it a moment longer. They think she has nothing to do but just amuse those two strong irrepressible children who climb over her and torment her in every fashion. I can’t stand it. I hardly slept last night thinking of it.”