Binks nodded.
“Well, are you sure we hadn’t better just smother it?”
Binks’s small face took on a curiously scornful expression. “Of course we hadn’t better smother it. She told me, so that I’d tell the right ones and have it fixed right, so that she can feel honest again. You see,”—she sighed—“those freaks always think that I will know how to fix things—and I never do know. But I can find out,” added Binks serenely. “I’m bright enough to do that. Only it is an unpleasant story, and you know Miss Wales, and how to tell it to her right. I think—I’m sure you’d better tell her, Georgia, if you’ll be so kind.”
“Certainly,” said Georgia. “Betty’s undoubtedly the one to handle it. I’ll see her some time to-morrow.”
“Oh, thank you, Georgia.” Binks glanced anxiously at her watch and slipped on her ulster. “Perhaps I can do something for you some day. I do wish I could.”
“Nonsense,” said Georgia bluffly. “I’m not doing anything. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.” Binks paused uncertainly on the threshold. “I forgot to say that I don’t think the freshman sister should stay on here, even if she had the money. I think she is really ill.”
“Dr. Carter thinks so, you mean?” asked Georgia.
“Dr. Carter hasn’t seen her. I think so myself. Mother is great on germs, you know, and I’ve learned to notice when people look ill. The freshman sister is pale and thin, and she coughs just a little, and she works on her nerves—much too hard. She ought to live outdoors for a while and get rested up and fed up. And if she would do that, why perhaps Mother would know of a free sanitorium that takes in—whatever she has. I must go now.”
Little Binks hurried eagerly off to conciliate the impatient poetess, leaving Georgia to meditate upon her peculiar cousin and the pathetic story she had told.