“I never do like to go to such places, girls; they smell so of ether, and arniky, and collodion, and a whole lot of other unpleasant things. I wonder what makes drugs so nasty to smell of?
“But, anyhow, I seen your father. John Bray is a sick man. Maybe he don’t know it himself, but the doctors know it, and you girls ought to know it. I’m plain-spoken, and there isn’t any use in making you believe he is on the road to recovery when he’s going just the other way.
“This head-doctor here, says he has no chance at all in the city. Of course, for me, if I was sick with anything, from housemaid’s knee to spinal mengetus, going into the country would be my complete finish! But the doctors say it’s different with your father.
“And just as soon as John Bray can ride in a railroad car, I am going to see that he joins you at Hillcrest.”
“Bully!” cried ’Phemie, the optimistic. “Oh, Lyddy! he’s bound to get well up here.” For this chanced to be a very beautiful spring day and the girls were more than ever enamored of the situation.
“I am not so sure,” said Lyddy, slowly.
“Don’t be a grump!” commanded her sister. “He’s just got to get well up here.” But Lyddy wondered afterward if ’Phemie believed what she said herself!
They finished cleaning thoroughly the two rooms they were at present occupying and began on the chambers above. Dust and the hateful spiderwebs certainly had collected in the years the house had been unoccupied; but the Bray girls were not afraid of hard work. Indeed, they enjoyed it.
Toward evening Lucas and his sister appeared, and the former set to work to repair the old pump on the porch, while Sairy sat down to “visit” with the girls of Hillcrest Farm.
“It’s goin’ to be nice havin’ you here, I declare,” said Miss Pritchett, who had arranged two curls on either side of her forehead, which shook in a very kittenish manner when she laughed and bridled.