"Ha ha! he—ha ha!—he asked me if I were engaged!"
"Ha ha ha! that was splendid."
"And just then you all came in."
"Ha ha! Ha ha ha!"
By this time it was so late that we must start for home and we took the quickest way, over High Street. It was almost dark and there was scarcely a person in sight, as we ran up the street through the March slush and mud.
"Oh, let's knock on Mother Brita's windows!" said I, and we knocked gaily on the little panes as we ran past the house.
At that moment Mother Brita called from her doorway.
"Halloa!" she called. "Come here a minute. God be praised that any one should come! Let me speak to you."
We went slowly back. Perhaps she was angry with us for knocking on her windows.
"Here I am as if I were in prison," said Mother Brita. "My little grandchild is sick with bronchitis and I can't leave him a single minute; and my son John, you know him, is out there at Stony Point with his ship, and is going to sail away this very evening, and he sails to China to be gone two years,—and I want so much to say good-bye to him—two whole years—to China—but I can't leave that poor sick baby in there, for he chokes if some one doesn't lift him up when the coughing spells come on—oh, there he's coughing again!"