"I shall want no dinner and Mr. Bing is dining in Hazelmead," she whispered. "Miss Phyllis is asleep. Don't disturb her."
Then she sat down in the darkness of her own bedroom alone.
CHAPTER SIX
In Which Hiram Blenkinsop Has a Number of Adventures
The Shepherd of the Birds had caught the plague of influenza in March and nearly lost his life with it. Judge Crooker and Mr. and Mrs. Singleton and their daughter and Father O'Neil and Mrs. Ames and Hiram Blenkinsop had taken turns in the nursing of the boy. He had come out of it with impaired vitality.
The rubber tree used to speak to him in those days of his depression and say, "It will be summer soon."
"Oh dear! But the days pass so slowly," Bob would answer with a sigh.
Then the round nickel clock would say cheerfully, "I hurry them along as fast as ever I can."