"He will be again, girlie. Don't you worry. Folks go to hospitals all the time and come back out of them. My father, he had the typhoid fever, last year, and he went. Don't you remember? and how nice all the neighbors were to me and ma. And now he's as strong—as strong! So'll your father be, too, and go whistling round the block just like he used to did. Don't cry, Dorothy C. It makes your eyes all funny and—and besides, if you don't stop I'll be crying myself, in a minute, and I don't want to. I look perfectly horrid when I cry, I get so red and puffy, and I shouldn't like to cry on this dress. It's just been done up and ma says I've got to keep it clean enough to wear four Sundays, it's such a job to iron all the ruffles."
Despite her loneliness Dorothy laughed. There was a deal of consideration for herself in Mabel's remarks, yet her sympathy was sincere as her affection long-proved. She had been the first playmate of the little foundling, and it was her belief—gathered from that of her parents—that the Chesters' adopted child would turn out to be of good birth, if ever the truth were known. In any case, she was the prettiest and cleverest girl in school, and Mabel was proud to be the one selected this morning as a companion.
"O you funny Mabel!" cried Dorothy. "You're sorry for both of us, aren't you! Well, come along. We started to get lunch and to talk. You go to the ice-box and get the things, while I set the table. Wait! Put on my tie-before, to keep your dress clean. Good thing your sleeves are short. Arms'll wash easier than ruffles. Hurry up—you to eat and I to talk."
Very shortly they were engaged in these congenial matters, though Mabel almost forgot that she was hungry in her astonishment at Dorothy's opening statement:
"We're going to move. I guess this is about the last time you'll ever come to this house to dinner."
"Going—to—move!" ejaculated Mabel, with her mouth so full of pie that she could hardly speak.
"Yes. We've got to pack up this very week."
"Where to? Who's going to live here? Who told you? Why?" demanded Mabel, hastening to get in as many questions as she could, during the interval of arranging a sandwich for herself.
"I don't—know! Why I never thought to ask, but I know it's true because it was my mother told me. 'Into the country,' she said, 'cause the hospital folks say that's the only thing for my father to do if he wants to get well. And of course he wants. We all want, more than anything else in the world. So, that's why, and that's the first piece of news. And say, Mabel, maybe your folks'll let you come and see me sometimes. That is, if my folks ask you," she added, with cautious afterthought.
"Maybe! Wouldn't that be just lovely? We'd go driving in a little T-cart, all by ourselves, with a dear little pony to haul us, and—and peaches and plums and strawberries and blackberries—Um!" exclaimed the prospective guest, compressing her lips as if she were already tasting these delights.