Cicely and Other Stories

by Annie F. Johnston

"My dear Agnes," said Mrs. Gooding, "we are simply delighted! It has waked her up and made a different creature of her. She is almost as easy and sociable with May's friends now as May is herself. Yesterday afternoon half a dozen of them came in with May to get warm after a long sleigh-ride. Alida prepared a delicious little chafing-dish lunch for them, and made herself so agreeable and entertaining that I was really surprised.

"I thought that she looked almost pretty, too. Her complexion is so clear now, since she has put to such good use what she has learned about hygiene. She looked so bright and animated, laughing and talking there in the firelight, that it did not seem possible she had ever been a cold, reticent girl, who always repelled people."

One morning, not long after this conversation, the family were surprised by Ben Fuller's driving up in his sleigh soon after breakfast, and asking for Alida. They were all in the library, and he announced his errand without taking a seat. "My sister Ada—Mrs. Cranford, you know—is very anxious for you to come over for a little while. She was so prostrated yesterday by the shock of what happened in her absence that she couldn't talk coherently to you then; but she feels that she must see you for a few moments, if possible, and she is unable to come out this morning. May I take you over in my sleigh?"

Alida, showing no trace of surprise at the message, rose at once to go up-stairs for her hat, but Mrs. Gooding plied him with astonished questions.

"Is it possible that she has not told you?" he exclaimed. "My sister is spending the winter here with her little daughter Doris. We all idolise the child, and she is never left alone a moment. But yesterday we were all out of town at a wedding, and Doris had to be left with only the nurse. Nobody will ever know how it happened, but she slipped away and got into the little cottage around the corner. There was a child there that she had taken a fancy to from seeing it at the window whenever she passed.

"Nobody can find out how long she was there, or what the two children did. She says that they played party and had 'good fings' to eat that they 'finded' by themselves. Miss Alida met her coming home about four o'clock, and turned to walk with her and see her safely into the house, for she suspected that Doris had run away. Doris was eating some of the pink candy that she had brought home from the cottage, although we did not know where it came from until this morning.

"She offered Miss Alida a taste out of the little pasteboard box she carried. To Miss Alida's horror, she found it was a package of roach paste, warranted to be a deadly poison to insects. Miss Alida hurried the child into the house and set to work so skilfully that by the time the doctor reached there, nothing was left for him to do. He said that Doris would have died but for Miss Alida's medical knowledge and immediate attention. If nothing had been done until he arrived, it would have been too late to save the child.

"Ada got home about the time he pronounced Doris entirely out of danger, and was so frightened when she heard what had happened that she went from one fainting spell into another. This morning we found where Doris got the poison, and learned that the little child at the cottage died in the night. Ada is so unnerved that she is nearly frantic, thinking how near she came to losing Doris. She is so grateful to Miss Alida that she would go through fire and water to serve her in any way. Well, we all would, in fact," added the young man, with a suspicion of huskiness in his voice. "You see, Doris is the only grandchild in the family, and we are almost foolishly fond of her."

Detaching a locket from his watch-chain, he handed it to the judge. "Here is a miniature of her," he said. The judge looked at the beautiful baby face framed in its golden curls, and then glanced up at Alida, who had returned, dressed for her drive.