Thus the month of October was passing rapidly and rather hopefully away. They received letters from Clara Bute occasionally, wherein she expressed herself well content with the country and the situation Mrs. Atwood had obtained for her. "I'm getting as plump and rosy as Susan," she wrote, "and I'm not coming back to town. Going up and down those tenement stairs tired me more than all the work I do here. Still, I work hard, I can tell you; but it's all sorts of work, with plenty of good air and good food to do it on. I'm treated better than I ever was before—just like one of the family, and there's a young farmer who takes me out to ride sometimes, and he acts and talks like a man."
Whether this attentive friend were Roger or a new acquaintance she did not say. For some reason a reticence in regard to the former characterized her letters.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE OLD ASTRONOMER
One Saturday night Mildred was awakened from time to time by the wailing of a child. The sounds came from the rooms of the Ulphs, which were directly overhead, and by morning she was convinced that there was a case of serious illness in the German family. Led by her sympathies, and also by the hope of thawing the reserve of the eccentric old astronomer, she resolved to go and ask if she could be of any help.
In response to her light knock a shock-headed, unkempt boy opened the door and revealed a state of chaos that might well have driven mad any student of the heavenly bodies with their orderly ways. There seemed to be one place for everything—the middle of the floor—and about everything was in this one place. In the midst of a desolation anything but picturesque, Mrs. Ulph sat before the fire with a little moaning baby upon her lap.
"I heard your child crying in the night," said Mildred gently, "and as we are neighbors I thought I would come up and see if I could help you."
The woman stared a moment and then asked, "You Miss Schoslin?"
"Yes, and I hope you will let me do something, for I fear you've been up all night and must be very tired."
"I'm shust dead; not von vink of schleep haf I had all der night. He shust cry und cry, and vat I do I don't know. I fear he die. Der fader gone for der doctor, but he die 'fore dey gets here. Schee, he getten gold now."