“I am so sorry!” she murmured apologetically to a presence beside the bed. “I have made you a horrid lot of trouble.”
“Not a bit,” said the presence, quietly. “So don’t you begin worrying about that.”
And she didn’t worry. It seemed impossible to worry about anything just then.
“I feel lots better,” she remarked, after a while.
“That’s right. I thought you would. Now I’m going to telephone your Aunt Jessica that you feel better, and you just lie quiet and go to sleep. Then you will feel better still. I’ll put the bell right here beside the bed. If you want anything, tap it.”
The presence waddled away—the girl could feel its going in the tremor of the bed 173 beneath her—and Elliott out of half-shut eyes looked into the room. The shades were partially drawn and the light was dim. A little breeze fluttered the white scrim curtain. The girl’s lazy gaze traveled slowly over what she could see without moving her head. To move her head would have been too much trouble. What she saw was spotless and clean and countrified, the kind of room she would have scorned this morning; now she thought it the most peaceful place in the world. But she didn’t intend to go to sleep in it. She meant merely to lie wrapped in that delicious mantle of well-being and continue to feel how utterly content she was. It seemed a pity to go to sleep and lose consciousness of a thing like that.
But the first thing she knew she was waking up and the room was quite dark and she felt comfortable, but just the least bit queer. It couldn’t be that she was hungry!
She lay and debated the point drowsily until a streak of light fell across the bed. The light came from a kerosene lamp in the hands of an immense woman whose mild blue eyes beamed on Elliott.
“There, you’ve waked up, haven’t you? I guess you’ll like a glass of milk now. You can bring it right up, Harriet. She’s awake.”