“Better, far better as she is,” thought Mittie, as she assisted the young travelers up stairs.
Ill and weary as she was, Helen could not help noticing the astonishing improvement in Mittie’s appearance, the life, the glow, the sunlight of her countenance. She gazed upon her with admiration and delight.
“How handsome you have grown, Mittie,” said she, “and I doubt not as good as you are handsome. And you look so much happier than you used to do. Oh! I do hope we shall love each other as sisters ought to do. It is so sweet to have a sister to love.”
The exchange of her warm, traveling dress for a loose, light undress, gave inexpressible relief to Helen, who, reclining on her own delightful bed, began to feel a soft, living glow stealing over the pallor of her cheek.
“Shall I comb and brush your hair for you?” asked Mittie, sitting down by the side of the bed, and gathering together the tangled tresses of hazel brown, that looked dim in contrast with her own shining raven hair.
“Thank you,” said Helen, pressing her hand gratefully in both hers. “You are so kind. Only smooth Alice’s first. If her brother comes, she will want to see him immediately—and you don’t know what a pleasure it is to arrange her golden ringlets.”
“Don’t you want to see the young doctor, too, Helen?”
“To be sure I do,” replied Helen, with a brightening color, “more than any one else in the world, I believe. But do they call him the young doctor, yet?”
“Yes—and will till he is as old as Methuselah, I expect,” replied Mittie, laughing.
“Brother is not more than five or six and twenty, now,” cried Alice, with emphasis.