“I am Miss Armitage and live in Loraine place, nearly opposite where the little girl fainted. Did the babies get home safely?”
“Oh, we are so glad! Won’t you please come upstairs for my sister can’t leave the children. We have been almost crazy! One 67 boy said she fell off the steps. Is she much hurt?”
“She had a bad fainting spell. The doctor came and he hardly knows what to think until tomorrow. The policeman proposed sending her to the Hospital, but I am one of the managers of the Settlement House in Beacon street, so I had her brought over to my house. A fall, you said?”
“That was what a boy said—that she tumbled off the step. Oh, Pansy dear, do hush! You miss Marilla, don’t you? The best little nurse in all the world. Oh, what can we do without her!”
Mrs. Borden was pacing the floor with the baby’s head against her shoulder and gently patting her. She did not scream now, but sobbed in a very sleepy fashion.
“You see, we are to start on Saturday noon, and we shall not come back until the middle of September. We thought it would be so nice for Marilla, too, she’d kind of run down though she wasn’t at all ill. Bridget worried that she ate so little and she was growing thin.”
“How long has she been with you?” 68
“I took her from an institution—the Bethany Home—about the middle of October. She was just twelve, the Matron said. I think she was very glad to come. She’s had a good home and plenty to eat. And one funny thing is that Bridget took such a fancy to her, and though Bridget’s good as gold, she has some queer streaks.”
Mrs. Borden sat down and drew a long breath. Pansy had fallen asleep at last.
“And we never let her lift the children or carry them up and down. I think babies are sometimes injured for life that way in falling. They used to sit on the rug and she’d tell them stories. I think she must have made them out of her head—funny things and she’d act them off and the babies would laugh and laugh—it was as good as a play. They seemed to understand every word. Marilla was a born nurse girl. But what can we do? We must have someone, and there’s only such a little time.”