“I do not know yet. They told me not to come to the hospital until nine-thirty.”
“I guess you’re in a mess over there–eh?” he said, with his most boyish smile.
But Lyddy was not for idle converse. She nodded, thanked him for his kindness the evening before, and firmly shut the window. She thought she knew how to keep that young man in his place.
But she hadn’t the heart to do anything toward tidying up the flat now. And how she wished she might not have to do it!
“If we could only take our clothing and the bedding and little things, and walk out,” she murmured, standing in the middle of the little parlor.
To try to “pick up the pieces” here was going to be dreadfully hard.
“I wish some fairy would come along and transport us all to Hillcrest Farm in the twinkling of an eye,” said Lyddy to herself. “I–I’d rather starve out there than live as we have for the past three months here.”
She went to the door of the flat just as somebody tapped gently on the panel. A poorly dressed Jewish man stood hesitating on the threshold.
“I’m sorry,” said Lyddy, hastily; “but we had trouble here last night–a fire. I can’t cook anything, and really haven’t a thing to give—”
Her mother had boasted that she had never turned away a beggar hungry from her door, and the oldest Bray girl always tried to feed the deserving. The man shook his head eagerly.