“I would never give up anything planned for the help and benefit of our suffering brethren—least of all of suffering children,” answered Bertram gravely, “and I think you are building on a better foundation now, Madge! The less we trust in ourselves, the more we ask help where it is to be found, the firmer our building will be, and more abiding will be the results.”
Madge nipped her brother’s arm fast. She understood much that was implied in that speech. He was not a man to speak readily of his deeper feelings; but Madge knew that they were there, and that they had been deeply stirred to-day.
“Now for some hospital where they will take the child,” he said in a different tone after a long silence. “I think I know one place where they will take a case in which I am specially interested, and make a nook for the little one somewhere, whether they are full or not.”
“St. Luke’s summer, my lamb! Just the day for Miss Madge to come home! But we mustn’t call her Miss Madge any longer. We must learn to say Mrs. Brook; and one day it will be Lady Brook, when the old gentleman is gone; but he’s wonderful hale and hearty still!”
Mrs. Gregg was bustling about the cheerful kitchen of the old-fashioned farmhouse, of which mention has been made before, and Allumette was sitting curled up on an antique oak settle in the ingle-nook, with a book open beside her. She was still a little white, frail bit of humanity—“a bag of bones,” Mrs. Gregg had called her when first she appeared at the farm, just after her own installation there as caretaker of the infant experiment. She had picked up a little flesh since then, but was still very weak and wan; only the light was coming back into the wistful eyes, and the lips were ready to smile with pure happiness and joy of life.
Life had indeed become a very wonderful thing for little Allumette since her awakening to the consciousness of her surroundings in the cheerful hospital ward. Everything since then had been so beautiful—so wonderful! Nothing but kindness had been her portion; and to crown all had come Miss Madge’s visits, upon the last of which she had heard that the cobbler and his wife—her best friends—had been sent down to live in a farmhouse close to the lady’s future home, and that Allumette herself was to go there as soon as she was well enough to leave the hospital, to live in the country always with her old friends, and by-and-by to be trained for service in Miss Madge’s own house, with the prospect of becoming her little maid in the future.
Miss Madge had told her all this just before she was to be married; and since then the child had not seen her. For, when she reached this delightful place, Mr. and Mrs. Brook were away upon their wedding trip, and only to-day were they to return.
“Hark to the bells!” cried Mrs. Gregg suddenly. “That means that the carriage is in sight of the village. Run, ducky! It will pass the place I showed you this morning. Take your posy and run and see them go by!”
A huge and very tasteful arrangement in brightly-tinted autumn leaves and flowers, tied with a white riband, lay upon the table. Little Allumette started up, tied on her hat, seized her bouquet, and started off like an arrow from a bow. She was strong enough to run a short distance now, and she knew just where the carriage would pass.