"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she shouted in that shrill toneless voice of hers.
Janice noticed that she talked less than formerly. Gradually the power of speech was going from her because of disuse. It is almost always so with the very young who are deprived of hearing.
Such a pitiful, pitiful case! Sometimes Janice could not think of little Lottie without weeping. It seemed so awful that merely a matter of money—a few hundred dollars—should keep this child from obtaining the surgical help and the training that might aid her to become a happy, normal girl.
It was from Mr. Middler—rather, through a certain conversation with the minister—that Janice received the greatest help during these weeks when her father's fate remained uncertain.
She could not spend all her time at Hopewell Drugg's, or with Walky Dexter, or even about the old Day house. Autumn had come, and the mornings were frosty. The woods were aflame with the sapless leaves. Ice skimmed the quiet pools before the late-rising sun kissed them.
Janice had sometimes met the minister when she tramped over the hillside—and especially up toward the Shower Bath in Jason Day's wood lot. One glowing, warm October afternoon the girl and the gentle little parson met on the cow path through Mr. Day's upper pasture.
"Ah, my dear!" he said, shaking hands. "Where are you bound for?"
"I don't know whether I had better tell you, or not, sir," she returned, smiling, yet with some gravity. "You see, I was going to get comfort."
"Comfort?"
"Yes, sir. You see, sometimes I get to thinking of—of Daddy so much that the whole world seems just made up of my trouble!" said Janice, with a sob. "Do you know what I mean, sir? Just as though me and my troubles were the most important things in existence—the only things, in fact."