"Did it, darling? Well, now I want you to go and ask your father about poor Ridley and his little children. You must ask him very sweetly, and perhaps he won't refuse. You would like to do that, wouldn't you?"
"May I take Miss Meade with me?"
"Yes, she may go with you. There, now, run away, dear. Mother is so busy helping the soldiers she hasn't time to talk to you."
"Why are you always so busy, mother?"
"She is so busy because she is doing good every minute of her life," said Mrs. Aylett. "You have an angel for a mother, Letty."
The child turned to her with sudden interest. "Is father an angel too?" she inquired.
A little laugh, strangled abruptly in a cough, broke from Daisy Colfax, while Mrs. Mallow hastily swallowed a cake before she buried her flushed face in her handkerchief. Only Mrs. Aylett, without losing her composure, remarked admiringly, "That's a pretty dress you have on, Letty."
"Now run away, dear," urged Angelica in a pleading tone, and the child, who had been stroking her mother's velvet sleeve, moved obediently to the door before she looked back and asked, "Aren't you coming too, Miss Meade?"
"Yes, I'm coming too," answered Caroline, and while she spoke she felt that she had never before needed so thoroughly the discipline of the hospital. As she put her arm about Letty's shoulders, and crossed the hall to Blackburn's library, she hoped passionately that he would not be in the room. Then Letty called out "father!" in a clear treble, and almost immediately the door opened, and Blackburn stood on the threshold.
"Do you want to come in?" he asked. "I've got a stack of work ahead, but there is always time for a talk with you."