“Yes, dear,” she said. “We will think of it that way. And if you should be ill at any time, I will have you brought here, and you shall stop when you take the babies out and let me see them, and rest a little.”
“Oh that will be just lovely. You are so good,” and she kissed the white hand lying on her shoulder.
Then Jane came in and she had her bath. 123 How delightful it was to be rubbed so carefully, to have her curly mop brushed.
“I ought to dress myself now. Why I’m not sick at all only I get tired easily, but I am stronger every day.”
The breakfast was so nice. And to be waited upon! Marilla gave an inward laugh of delight.
And while Miss Armitage was at church, Dr. Richards came and bundled her up, carried her downstairs and deposited her in the buggy. He was very merry, somehow. He was going out in the country and, oh, how beautiful everything was! There had been a shower in the night and the air was full of fragrance from the grass, the pines and cedars, the orchards, wild flowers, and newly cut hay, that had not all been gathered in. Children ran about or swung in hammocks. Hens were fairly shouting with no regard for Sunday. Birds were caroling all sorts of joyous tunes and the tree twigs were gaily dancing. And here and there such beautiful drifts went over the sky, ships, she called them. They were going to fairy land—something that was not quite heaven, but a lovely place 124 for all that. There must be so many lovely places in this great world! Over the ocean where Miss Armitage had been, and she recalled the castles and palaces and beautiful woods, and peasants dancing on the green and laughing; that she had seen in the portfolio of engravings. And the legends she had listened to! Oh, if she could go to school and learn ever so many things now, for when she was eighteen she would be too old, and a kind of perplexity settled in her smooth forehead.