“Can’t you bring her over for a visit?”
“I thought of proposing that. If I could persuade her to transfer the child to me—”
“But if she gets another nurse?”
“Yes, I must try. The strain on her is too great, and now for almost a week she has not been out of the house; Mrs. Borden bewails it for the childrens’ sake. She thinks only of them with a mother’s selfishness, and she doesn’t give Marilla credit for these pretty ways or their intelligence. She is just their nurse girl. It is a cruel waste of the child’s gifts.”
“I’d like to see Dr. Baker; most of all I’d like to see Marilla, but it wouldn’t be etiquette to call.” 216
“I’ll go tomorrow with courage enough to have a gentle talk or a straight out one,” said Miss Armitage resolutely. “We try to save other lives, why not this one? And this one is dear to me. It has so much of promise in it, and life gets lonely sometimes.”
He longed to come into it, but he kept his promise. Until she made some sign he must be content with friendship. He rose abruptly and said he must be going. She did not detain him.
It was raining a-softly now and he hurried along. His office was in a little ell part in a rather inviting looking house, and he took his meals with the tenant. The office boy was on the lookout for him, it was time he went home.
“There’s a gentleman in there waiting for you,” he said with his good-night.
The gentleman was comfortably ensconced in the Morris chair, smoking a cigar. Doctor Richards took a second look.