She didn’t know what else to say, so she went sadly to the loft. There she found Deborah, sleeping sweetly, as if she had never done a thing wrong in the world.
She sat down by the open window, and looked across the river valley, and across the lake, to the mountains.
“Oh dear!” she sighed.
She heard Mrs. Alder speaking.
“I don’t care, I think the Doctor was asking a good deal of us, to keep a strange child like that.”
“Well, Mary, never mind. It is only for a few days longer. I guess we can stand it. Think of the pleasure it gives Clematis.”
Mr. Alder spoke kindly, but as Clematis heard the words, she turned pale.
“Only a few days more. Only a few days more.” The words went through her mind again and again.
She had never thought about going back. Two weeks seems a long, long time to little girls. Only a few days more before she must leave Tilton.
Clematis put her elbows on the window sill, and rested her chin in her hands.