“Yes.” Then Sarah, who could not make her needles go any faster, jumped up with stiff quickness, exclaiming: “Land sakes! let me do it. I know what children like; you go ’way an’ I’ll surprise you and them, too,”—which was exactly what the mistress of the house had been waiting for Sarah to say.
She ran up-stairs to tell her Aunt Virginia good-bye. When she came into the library again, she found that Betty had returned and that the three girls were standing around the centre-table where the dolls were, trying to decide which they should dress next.
“Girls, Aunt Virginia wants to see you, because she has heard so much about the Club,” said Miss Ruth.
“You haven’t told her the name, have you?” Betty asked anxiously, as they followed Miss Ruth up-stairs.
“O, no! I just call it ‘the Club’ when I speak of it.”
“That’s the way I do,” Betty said, encouragingly, running on ahead.
Miss Virginia Warren was accustomed to take extremely good care of herself. To-day she was sitting in a large easy chair with soft cushions all around her and a dark blue afghan over her knees. She was about sixty years old, a large, rather heavy-looking woman, very pale because she did not like fresh air in her room and never went out-of-doors in cold weather; and indeed, she took as little exercise as possible all times of the year, because she lived in constant fear of bringing on heart trouble. Her face, though white, was very fair, and her brown eyes—in colour and in a quick way she had of raising them—were like Ruth Warren’s, but there the likeness ended, for the aunt’s eyes had a wilful expression; her mouth also had a selfish droop at the corners.
Miss Virginia was dressed in a light blue wrapper, much trimmed with white lace. She shook hands with each of the three girls,—she had large, handsome hands, but without much life in them,—then she looked the girls over as if they were a row of dolls.
“They seem like bright little children,” she said slowly, turning to Ruth Warren, her voice sounding as if she lifted a weight with her chest at each breath; “but they look so well and strong and so full of life,”—here Betty stopped twisting herself,—“so full of life, Ruth,” went on the slow voice, “that I should think they would tire you all out.”
Miss Virginia, who had leaned forward slightly while she spoke, sank back among her pillows. “They may go now,” she said, with a wave of her large, white hand in the direction of the embarrassed children; “I am tired already,” she repeated, “and you know almost anything brings on heart trouble.”