“Yes,” said Aimée, a trifle slowly, as she took it from her hand. “I will send Belinda out with it now.” And she carried it out of the room.
In a few minutes she returned. “She has taken it,” she said. “And now you had better go to bed, Dolly.”
But Dolly's color had faded again, and she was resting her forehead upon her hands, with a heavy, anxious, worn look, which spoke of sudden reaction. She lifted her face with a half-absent air.
“I hope it will be in time for to-night's post,” she said. “Do you think it will?”
“I am not quite sure, but I hope so. You must come to bed, Dolly.”
She got up without saying more, and followed her out into the hall, but at the foot of the staircase she stopped. “I have not seen Tod,” she said. “Let us go into 'Toinette's room and ask her to let us have him to-night. We can carry him up-stairs without wakening him. I have done it many a time. I should like to have him in my arms to-night.”
So they turned into Mrs. Phil's room, and found that handsome young matron sitting in her dressing-gown before the fire, brushing out her great dark mantle of hair.
“Don't waken Tod,” she cried out, as usual; and then when she saw Dolly she broke into a whispered volley of wondering questions. Where in the world had she been? What had she been doing with herself until such an hour? Where was Grif? Was n't he awfully vexed? What had he said when she came in? All of which inquiries the two parried as best they might.
As to Tod—well, Tod turned her thoughts in another direction. He was a beauty, and a king, and a darling, and he was growing sweeter and brighter every day,—which comments, by the way, were always the first made upon the subject of the immortal Tod. He was so amiable, too, and so clever and so little trouble. He went to sleep in his crib every night at seven, and never awakened until morning. Aunt Dolly might look at him now with those two precious middle fingers in his little mouth. And Aunt Dolly did look at him, lifting the cover slightly, and bending over him as he lay there making a deep dent in his small, plump pillow,—a very king of babies, soft and round and warm, the white lids drooped and fast closed over his dark eyes, their long fringes making a faint shadow on his fair, smooth baby cheeks, the two fingers in his sweet mouth, the round, cleft chin turned up, the firm, tiny white pillar of a throat bare.
“Oh, my bonny baby!” cried Dolly, the words rising from the bottom of her heart, “how fair and sweet you are!”