"Well?" asked Rachel.
"I suppose you couldn't manage to take my mother's place?"
"To superintend the Sunday School and the Mother's Meeting?"
"Yes. It would lift such a burden off her heart. You see she is one of those people who worry unnecessarily, and I can't tell you what a relief it would be to me to be able to tell her that her place has been supplied."
"I don't quite see how I can, with baby," said Rachel.
"But there is Polly. She likes looking after him."
"Dickory, dickory, dock," sang Rachel again, "the mouse ran up the clock." But while playing she was not only thinking of the anxiety which would be hers if she had to leave baby constantly under Polly's care; but she was wondering if her own health would stand it. She must keep well for Luke's sake as well as for baby's, and lately she had felt sometimes at the end of her tether. She had already undertaken a district of her own and various other duties, and what with the cooking and the house, not to mention all the work that little Pat entailed, she had felt that if she did not soon have a rest she would break down altogether. Yet here was Luke, looking at her with his anxious pleading eyes; and she had never failed him yet, how could she fail him now?
"Dickory, dickory, dock," sang Rachel as she ran her fingers up Pat's little arm:
"The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
Down the mouse ran,
Dickory, dickory, dock."
Baby crowed with merriment, and Rachel looked up gravely at her husband.