“Now will you just be quiet and cease crying, and let me think it all over. Try to go to sleep if you can. Perhaps some of it may wear off, and you’ll be bigger by and bye.”
Tucking the baby up in bed, Prudence began restlessly to pace the room, pausing now and again to look at the queer little creature that had plunged her into such unexpected difficulties. In despair she thrust her hands into her hair, and gnawed at her fingers. Finally she flung herself into a chair by the window, and, staring blankly into the street, tried to devise some means out of her dilemma. The more she thought of it, the more serious and unpleasant did it appear. How Augusta could have been so foolish as to finish the contents of the bottle, how the bottle itself came to be broken, she could only imagine. The result at any rate was sufficiently deplorable. Her sister had not stopped at eight-and-thirty, nor eight-and-twenty, nor even eighteen, as would have been natural and delightful, but had gone at a bound to about eight days old.
“What a mercy,” thought Prudence, kind-hearted in the midst of her anger and perplexity, “what a mercy that there were not a few drops more, or what would have become of her!”
After long cogitation the lady who had hitherto been the younger Miss Semaphore rose, went into her own room, dressed, bathed her swollen eyelids, and smoothed her hair. Then she returned to her sister’s bedside.
Augusta was wide awake, but she had ceased crying. It was only by her eyes, big with intelligence, and looking weird and uncanny in her ugly little red face, that Prudence saw reason still reigned within her diminished body, A “queer child,” a “fairy changeling,” an “elfish infant,” would be the terms applied to Miss Semaphore by anyone not in the secret of her rejuvenescence.
“Augusta,” said Prudence solemnly, “I have thought it all out. Immediately after breakfast I will go in search of this Mrs. Geldheraus, and see if she cannot provide you with some—some antidote for this horrible state of things. If she cannot, I don’t know what will become of you. It is no use telling the truth to the people in this house. In the first place it would be a very disagreeable matter to go into, and make us seem very ridiculous. In the second they would not believe me. My only chance, if I don’t succeed in getting something to cure you, is to tell them to-day that you have had a letter summoning you to the country on important business. I shall make excuses later for your having had to hurry off to catch a train without saying good-bye to anyone. Meantime I must hide you here somewhere in this room or in mine until to-night, and knowing how much depends on it, I do implore you to be quiet and not cry. If Mrs. Geldheraus fails me, I shall enquire everywhere for some good, kind woman who will take care of you till you grow a little older, for of course you must see how impossible it would be for me to go about with a baby of your age. This evening, after dinner, when it is dark, I will try to smuggle you out unobserved to the woman, if I can find one suitable, then give warning, and go to some quiet place where nobody knows us, and where I can perhaps have you back to live with me. Now what do you think of my plan? Do you like it?”
Augusta evidently did not, for she shook her head as vehemently as she could.
“Well,” said Prudence crossly, “if you don’t you needn’t. I can think of nothing better, and you are not able to give me much help or advice. You have only yourself to thank for having brought all this trouble on us. I’m sure I never was so worried in my life.”
Augusta was perforce silent, but her eyes followed every movement of her sister.
“Now,” continued Prudence, as the breakfast gong sounded, “I must go downstairs. I shall say you have had a bad night, and desire no breakfast. I shall lock the door of your room so that the housemaid may not come in, and shall bring you up a cup of milk. I suppose that is the proper thing for you. Can you eat anything solid?”