Mother Melinda shook her head, and laughed.
“I should like to ketch you at it,” she said, with tender sternness.
“At any rate, you won’t,” said Esmeralda, with a soft echo of a laugh. “I’ve just discovered that lying here in the cool, doing nothing, and thinking of nothing—except whether I shall get two pieces of toast or one with my beef-tea—is just what I was intended for; and I give you fair warning, ’Linda, that I mean to lie here, and gaze about generally, as long as you’ll stand it.”
Mother Melinda looked at her lovingly.
“I think as how you are looking better and stronger, Ralda,” she said.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Esmeralda, closing her eyes with an obvious affectation of extreme weakness. “I’m not fit for anything but what I’m doing, and I mean to keep so for—oh, ever so long. Why, you silly old goose,” she continued, opening her eyes and flashing them suddenly upon the wrinkled face with one of her old looks, “I could take you up in my arms and carry you down to the stream and back; and I would if I weren’t so beautifully lazy.”
Mother Melinda laughed, and looked down at the ground with a curious little expression.
“The doctor’s gone down to the camp,” she said. “He said you might have anything to eat you fancied. Is there anything you’d pertikler like, dearie?”
“Yes,” said Esmeralda; “I should like a beefsteak, a big one, and some potatoes, and a custard pudding, with currants in it, and any little trifle of that kind suited to an invalid with a huge appetite; but I suppose it will be the usual beef-tea and the piece of toast. You wait a little while. I’ll have my revenge. I’ll shut you up in a hut, and feed you on beef-tea for a few weeks, and then I’ll ask you if there is anything you fancy, you cruel old woman!”