How far, far away sounded the hackman's footsteps, retreating before them to the street! How queerly her feet jogged up and down on the stairs, which seemed to spring upward into her very face as she descended! In all her life she had never, never felt so tired and curiously weak as now, when all the power to move her limbs seemed suddenly to leave her.
"Ah! the carriage!" She could dimly see it, in the glare of an electric light, and now she welcomed it most eagerly. If ever she were to reach that blessed haven of home she would have to be carried there. So she made no remonstrance when she was bodily lifted into the coupé and placed upon its cushions, where, at once, she went to sleep.
"Here girl. Time you woke up and took your breakfast."
After that strange dizziness in descending the stairs of the house in Howard Street, Dorothy's first sensation was one of languid surprise. A big, coarse-looking woman stood beside the bed on which she lay, holding a plate in one hand, a cup in the other. Broad beams of sunlight streamed through an uncurtained window near, and a fresh breeze blew in from the fields beyond.
"Why—the country! Have we come to it so soon and I not knowing? Mother! Where is my mother?" she asked, gaining in strength and rising upon her elbow. Then she saw that she had lain down without undressing and cautiously stepped to the floor, which was bare and not wholly clean. Her head felt light and dizzy still, so that she suddenly again sat down on the bed's edge to recover herself. Thereupon the woman dragged a wooden chair forward and, placing the breakfast on it, said:
"I can't bother no more. Eat it or leave it. I've got my fruit to pick."
Then she turned away, but Dorothy reached forward, caught the blue denim skirt, and demanded:
"Tell me where my mother is? I want her. I want her right away."
"Like enough. I don't know. I'm goin'. I'll be in to get your dinner. You can lie down again or do what you want, only stay inside. Orders."