"And you don't care?"
Rosamund arose, and mercifully burst into tears. "Oh, Eleanor!" she sobbed, "how can you ask me that? Do you think I care for the mere loss of a few sticks and stones and things, when he——"
Again Eleanor's comforting arms were around her, and Eleanor's hand on her hair. "Oh, you darling! I knew you'd say that! I knew you would! They cannot do anything without your consent!"
Apparently in relief from some doubt or fear, she even laughed. Rosamund looked at her in amazement.
"What on earth do you mean?" she began.
But before there could be time for explanation the door opened, and Father Cary brought his little wife into the room in his arms, and set her down in a chair.
Mother Cary always brought an atmosphere of happiness with her, but this time, it seemed to Rosamund, she was also the personification of all that was angelic and beautiful, a messenger of hope, a bearer of glad tidings.
"Well," she began, as soon as Pap had set her down and unbundled her, "they come! My, that young woman knows jest how to go about things! I been nursin' all my life, seems like, and that girl can't be more than twenty-five; but the way she took a holt o' things did beat me! My! I wasn't one bit worried at leavin' him with her, not one bit! An' Doctor Blake's goin' to set up all night."
She smiled into Rosamund's beseeching eyes.
"Doctor Blake says they ain't a doubt but he'll be all right in no time!" she said, and mentally asked forgiveness for stretching the truth. "He says his eyes ain't hurt a bit, far as he can tell, an' it's only the smoke got into them, that's all. An' anybody knows that ain't much! Land! Think how many smokin' chimblys there be, an' nobody givin' a thought to 'em!"