“How did she come to let you go?”
“It was one very hot day—and somehow I was so dreadfully tired all the time, I sat down on a stoop—it was a beautiful, shady street with great trees, and most everybody had gone away. The babies were not very well and a little cross. You had to be doing things all the while, and—I don’t know what happened, but I fell off the stoop and some one picked me up and then Miss Armitage who lived opposite came over and had me taken to her house and for a long while I just seemed in the dark and didn’t know anything. It was then that Dr. Richards came. They were all so good, and it was like being in heaven. The Bordens had gone to Long Island and the babies were very sick getting some teeth, and they wanted me, I was bound, you know, so I had to go as soon as I was well enough. Part of it was very nice; the babies could walk then. After we came back”—she made a little pause for she had not even told Dr. Richards Jack’s part in the mishap—“I fainted one day. Their old aunt was ill and she wanted me, so I went and—it was dreadful—she died and I fainted again. Then Miss Armitage 261 came and took me home with her. Mrs. Borden took a new nursemaid, a grown up woman and was willing to let me go, and these other things happened. Oh, I want to stay always with Miss Armitage.”
“You poor little girl! I think you have had a rather hard time. What does Dr. Richards say?”
“The other doctor said I had a weak heart. Does that make you faint away? It’s almost like dying—you don’t seem to know anything for a long while, and it is very hard to get back.”
“You have been worked pretty hard I guess.” How simply the child had told her story. “But now life will be better. I am very glad this little fortune has come to you, and now I am going up stairs a few moments, and you may look over the books on the table. I will soon be back.”
Instead Marilla looked about the room. The front one was the parlor, very nicely furnished. The back one shut off the end of the hall. There were three French windows reaching to the floor, the last one being a door leading out to an enclosed porch with windows 262 that would be very pleasant in summer. There was only a small yard with a tiny grass plot and an alleyway running through at the back.
There was a big book case in one recess, a lounge, a Morris chair and a substantial center table containing books and papers. It had a home-like, well used look, with several cosy rocking chairs.
Mrs. Warren returned with some sewing and without evincing undue curiosity led Marilla to talk of her past, though the child really knew very little about her mother and seemed to have no tender or regretful regard for this Mrs. Jaques. But her whole heart went out to Miss Armitage in something like worship.
The girls came home and in a short time they were all friends. It seemed odd to them that Marilla had never been to a real school. Jessie was in the kindergarten, but would enter the primary in February. May was there and Edith hoped to get in the High School another year. Then they carried her off to their play room. This was the hall bedroom on the next floor. There was a small book case, a sort of closet with glass doors 263 where playthings were kept and one shelf devoted to dolls. Marilla stood entranced before it.
“Have you many dolls?” asked May.