“Ain’t it, ma’am? What’s it like, that country?”
Jessica listened, amazed to hear Sophy talking so glibly to her stately Cousin Margaret and to hear that lady replying with so much graciousness to this once most objectionable girl from Avenue A:
“What is the country like? Like Central Park, only infinitely lovelier. I’ve a bit of good news for you, too, my child. That good grandmother of yours is going with us to our new home. Ephraim Marsh says she ‘hails from Cawnco’d,’ same as himself and that she is wearing her heart out here in the great city. He says, besides, which is more to the point, that she is a fine cook. So she has promised to go and live with me and do the family’s cooking. As soon, then, as you are able to come, you shall visit us and her. Visit, at first, only; because if you are to be made just like you’d wish to be, it will take many months, maybe even years. You will really live at the hospital, while Granny lives with us. But it’s only an hour or two between; short journeys by rail or boat, a bit of a ride behind Buster—and you will be in the country itself.”
“Oh! O-h!” gasped poor Sophy, too greatly overcome for further words.
“Now, Jessica, bid your little friend good-by. You may write to her and maybe she can write to you—if——”
“Oh! ma’am, I can, I can! Granny made me go to night school and I can write real plain. If I had any paper, or money to put on a stamp on the envelope. You can get them to a drug store and they cost two cents. The stamps do. Maybe, if you didn’t mind, some these hospital folks’d buy one these roses. Then I could. If you didn’t mind so very much.”
“Can you? Well, I fancy a stamp may be procured even right here in this hospital and without disposing of your flowers. I will see that it is provided, with all else that is necessary. Ah! you poor, beauty-starved child, to whom roses suggest but sordid money! Well, it will not be long till you gather roses from bushes out of doors, and may they there suggest to you only God’s goodness and love!”
This was a rare outburst from the reticent Madam; who was widely known for her liberal, “organized” charities; but who had hitherto contented herself with such, missing the greater delight of bestowing herself—her personal interest and sympathy, which alone make charity worth anything to its recipient.
Then Cousin Margaret bore Jessica away. Granny came for a brief, rather unsatisfactory visit, since the new surroundings in which she found her grandchild always rather abashed her. Ephraim flew in and out, like an excited old child, with his arms full of bundles—of more or less useless contents, like a toy bear and a pineapple cheese—and at last Sophy was alone in that hospital she had so dreaded.
For a time she felt deserted; but it was only on the second day that a letter came from Jessica, containing a stamped, addressed envelope, that made the safe delivery of Sophy’s answer a sure thing. Jessie’s effusion was not quite so well written as these she had sent home to California, and this explained itself: