“She is very pleased and, I think, patient—four years older than you.”
“Oh, suppose they didn’t want me back?” and the child drew a long breath of half fear. 90
“There will be something else,” in an assuring tone.
Marilla leaned her head back on the pillow. She had talked herself tired. How queer that was, too, when she had talked for hours to the babies.
“Would you like me to read to you?” inquired Miss Armitage.
“Oh, yes, if it’s verses. There’s a curious music in verses that goes all through you, keeping time to something in your brain. I just love them.”
The lady found “Songs of Seven” with its musical lilt and the child listened wide-eyed as if it made pictures to her. Then the doctor came in and was very much pleased over her improvement.
But the next day she was quite languid again. She took a few steps when suddenly everything swam before her eyes and she would have fallen but for Jane’s strong arm.
“Oh, you don’t suppose I can never walk any more?” she cried in affright. “For there was a nurse at the Home who fell down that way and she had been very well, too. But something happened to her hips. I can’t 91 think what they called it, and she never could walk again. They had to send her to the hospital and she could get about just a little on crutches. Oh, dear” and Marilla began to cry.
“There don’t think of such a thing. It was only weakness,” comforted Miss Armitage. “Once when I was ill I fainted a great many times for just nothing at all. You have not had a chance to get strong yet.”