"Sit down," I forced myself to speak evenly, "and tell me exactly what happened."
She sidled to the big chair, her gaze still fixed upon me, as though to watch me was henceforth her first anxiety. She gripped the arm of the chair and hung undecided for a moment as though fearful of making herself so much at home as to sit down in this room.
"Sit down," I reiterated more encouragingly, "and tell me what happened to my sister."
"Yes, sir," she murmured obediently, perching on the edge of the great chair. "Well," she began, "when I came home from school in the afternoon Mrs. Pendleton was lying down. The children were hanging about her bed and she looked very pale."
"Yes, yes," I urged her on impatiently.
"Then I took them downstairs and gave them their bread and milk and tried to read to them so as to keep them quiet. But only the littlest one, Jimmie, wanted to listen. Randolph and Laura wanted to play Kings and Queens." I realized that I must hear the story in the girl's own way.
"Then," she continued, with an effort at exactitude, "I thought that Jimmie and I had better join them, because then I could keep them from making so much noise. We played until supper time. But Mrs. Pendleton didn't feel well enough to come down. So the children and I had supper downstairs and Hattie—that's the cook—took Mrs. Pendleton's supper up on a tray."
That must have been while I was lamenting to Dibdin over the hardness of my lot.
"Then what happened?" I muttered, turning away from her gaze.
"I went up to see if Mrs. Pendleton wanted anything," she resumed nervously, frightened by my movement, "and she said no, but that she'd get up later when it was time for them to go to bed. So I helped them with their lessons until bedtime and Mrs. Pendleton came down. She said she felt a little better, but she looked very sad and white. And when she began to walk up the stairs—" her lips grew tremulous again and the tears dashed out of her eyes, but she finally controlled herself bravely.