“And how have you been, child, since that unhappy day when I saw you last?”
And Mrs. Dale came to the next chair, and piled sugar on the strawberries.
“Oh, I’ve been getting on all right, but it is tiresome not to be able to walk without those things. And it has made me in everybody’s way,” sighed Mabin.
“How is that?”
“Papa could have let the house to go abroad, as he wanted to, when the accident happened. Only I couldn’t well be moved then. And now that I could go, he has lost the house he had heard of at Geneva, and one which he could have now is too small for us. So that I feel I am in the way again.”
“Do you mean,” asked Mrs. Dale quite eagerly, “that they could go if only they could dispose of you?”
“Yes. There is one room short.”
Little Mrs. Dale sprang up, and the color in her cheeks grew pinker.
“Do you think,” she asked, after a moment’s pause, “that your parents would allow you to stay with me? If you would come?” she finished with a plaintive note of entreaty on the last words.
“Oh, I am sure they would, and I am sure I would!” cried Mabin, with undisguised delight.