"I'm dretful sick, Judidy," a voice from the couch said, weakly; "I had the doctor."
"I thought you was a spiritualist, and didn't believe in no medicine."
"I don't believe that no doctor could doctor me as well as Little Eva could, but Mis' Hawes she couldn't come. I was too sick to depend on a contrary control, so we called the doctor, and he left me some kinder dark stuff to take, and some light-coloured pills that's kind o' quieting."
"Do tell," said Judidy, politely. "Now you drink to where I've got my finger," she instructed Madget, as she held out the milk bottle, which the children were trying to reach, "then Mabel, then——"
"Pour a little out in this cup, and I'll feed Madget myself," Elizabeth said. "I guess the other children had better drink out of the bottle."
Judidy looked at Elizabeth admiringly as she lifted the little girl on her lap.
"My, ain't you a pretty picture," she said, heartily. "You was just as stuck up, when you first came, with your ideas about having a demi-tassy after you had et, and laffing at the pump in the kitchen, and never eating anything between meals, and to see you now, a-taking up with the town's poor as if they was own relations."
"Don't you call us town's poor," Mrs. Steppe said, sitting up suddenly, and then falling back with a groan. "I ain't never been called such a name, Judidy Eldredge."
"You just lay still," Judidy said, "and don't you worry. I'll stay now, Elizabeth, and you can go home and get ready for your dinner. It's a lucky thing I had it all arranged to have a day off on account of my feller being home. Miss Laury Ann she told me to send you as soon as I got here."
"But I don't want you to have to lose a day with your—feller," Elizabeth said, trying not to be guilty of the rudeness of correcting Judidy's pronunciation. "I'll come back as soon as Grandma will let me."