“What do you think about it, father?” she asked.
“I think that before you decide you must realize that it will be a great responsibility.”
“I have thought of that,” she said. “And of course there is the expense to be thought of.”
“Never mind about the expense; I will undertake that part of the matter if you will undertake the responsibility. Do you quite realize that even pretty little children are sometimes cross and naughty and ill?”
She laughed.
“Yes, yes; I have seen those children in all aspects, and they are rather spoiled. But I can’t bear to think that they will be sent to some great institution, with no one to care for them properly.”
“Then you are willing to undertake your share of the bargain?”
“Quite.”
“Very well, then, that is settled. Let us come across and see if any one has stepped in before us.”
Cecil, in great excitement, flew upstairs to tell her mother, and reappeared in a minute or two in her hat and jacket. Then the father and daughter crossed the quiet suburban road to the opposite house, where such a different life-story had been lived. The door was opened to them by the nurse; she had evidently been crying, and even as they entered the passage they seemed conscious of the desolation of the whole atmosphere.