“So if you will have Marilla ready about two o’clock on Saturday, Mr. Borden will call for her. If she needs a dress will you kindly purchase it and tell him. We have all her clothes down here. There is a beautiful big lawn with hammocks and everything, and 106 if she is not very strong yet she can have sea bathing which is splendid, and fine diet. And we certainly are your deeply grateful friends.
“Mrs. Mary Borden.”
Miss Armitage read the letter over twice and watched the pale little girl enjoying the pictures. It was not quite a heartless letter but, it had no special sympathy for the poor little Cinderella, if she did not have to sit in the ashes. Then she laid it by and went at the others.
“Please Miss Armitage, may I go upstairs? I am so tired. What do you suppose makes me feel tired so easily?”
“You are not strong yet. Yes, we will go upstairs and you must lie down.”
She placed her arm around the slender body. Marilla kissed the white hand.
The doctor came in the next morning, and Miss Armitage handed him the letter.
“Has the average woman any soul!” he exclaimed angrily.
“Mrs. Borden has had no means of knowing how severe the case really was––”
“See here, she might have written on—say Tuesday and inquired. Why Marilla might 107 have died with just a little more. She doesn’t go. She won’t be strong enough to bother with teething babies in some time yet, if at all.”