“Oh! Oh! Maw’s had another stroke! We’re to go to her bedside immejit.”
“Another stroke!” Amanda echoed in a ghostly voice. “It’s the end. Poor Maw! Another stroke!”
“Oh, poor Mrs. Frigget. Oh, poor Amanda! Oh, poor Jemima! But it isn’t the end. She’ll have lots more.” Rosamond, all tender consternation, endeavoured to console. “It’s only her second, and they always have three, at least. Dr. Wells says he knew a patient who had seven.”
Failing to stop their cries by hopeful words, she took practical steps. She ran to the open door and called:
“Blake! Blake! Oh, there you are. Blake, you must harness the mare at once and drive Amanda and Jemima to Trenton. Their mother is ill!”
“Good-mornin’, Mrs. Mearely, mum. Ill, is she? In course, she’s ill,” came in a slow, rumbling voice from some aged masculine out of sight. “She’s been bedridden nigh three year.”
“Hush, Blake. You must not be so unfeeling. She’s just had a stroke.”
“That’s them sleezy, new-style, board-roof cottages. They’d oughter kep’ a green umbreller over ’er bed.”
“It isn’t a sun-stroke, Blake! It’s a—another kind. And you must harness, at once, and take her daughters to her.”
“Oh, yep. If the wuss is a-goin’ to ’appen, them two Friggets has got to be thar to see it. Good-mornin’, Amanda and Jemima.”