She came back with their mother.
"She's dropped off now. I expect she'll sleep, poor little thing—she's worn out with the pain," said Nurse as they looked down at unconscious Vonnie.
"Poor child! Well, Nurse, if you'll move in here for to-night, I'll take Miss Lily into my room."
"Going to sleep with Mother" was a treat. Lily knew very well that if she had been the one to be ill, she would have been moved into her mother's room long since.
But nothing mattered, now that Vonnie was sleeping peacefully, and being taken care of by a kind, omnipotent grown-up person.
When Lily was lying snugly between the soft, scented sheets in her mother's enormous bed, with the pale pink quilt spread across it, her mother came and knelt beside her and put her arms round her.
"Go to sleep quickly, my pet. I shall be in bed directly. I've only got to take off my dressing-gown. Settle down comfily, now."
A delicious, drowsy feeling invaded Lily, and she turned over obediently on her side.
"Why, my poor chicken, you've been crying! There's nothing for you to cry about. Did you have a bad dream?"
"Vonnie had earache," murmured Lily, half asleep, and heard without surprise her mother's amused, uncomprehending laugh and answer: