The woman turned to her with a face in which gratitude and some great sorrow were contending emotions, and caught her hands and held them tight.
"No," she said, "I don't mind being under obligations to you; I'm almost glad to be, for the sake of knowing such a woman. You can do a kindness without making it a burden; there are people who pay a debt as if they were doing you a favor. The only thing I mind is that I am not more worthy of all you have done for me."
Silvia put her hands on the other woman's shoulders. "Don't talk to me of unworthiness," she said. "You are a brave woman and a devoted mother; it is one of the crimes of civilization that you should lack for any creature comforts, and you shall not any more. You shall earn what you need yourself, and this fall I intend to start a class of girls in domestic economy, and you shall teach them how to make these pretty things you fashion so exquisitely."
An indescribable look of pain and rebellion passed over Mrs. Bell's face, and she turned away from Silvia, with a quick gesture of renunciation.
"In the meantime," Silvia went on, feeling that the time had not come to seek any further confidence, "I am going to borrow Alice. I want to take her up to Nutwood for a week or two, and as I'm going this noon, suppose you gather her things together, and I'll take her right along."
The little girl gave a cry of joy, and then her face dropped. "But, mamma," she said, "will I miss my present from Dr. Earl?"
Her mother smiled and explained that the doctor had promised to send Allie "something better than candy" from Boston, where he had gone the night before. "I will forward it," she said; "you can trust mother for that."
"He has been very good to you, hasn't he?" said Silvia absently, thinking of him once more as she had seen him first, as he bent over the child, the sleeves rolled back from his powerful white arms while he bathed the matted locks and set the broken leg.
"He has that," said the woman laconically. "I'm glad to have Allie go with you, for she would miss him; he said he wouldn't be back for a week. Now be a good girl, Allie, and do just as Miss Holland tells you, and you will write mother a little letter every day, and mother will write to you." She flung her arms about the child in a sudden passion of emotion, but the eyes that looked into Silvia's as she took her hand were dry and wretched.
"I wish you could tell me all about it," Silvia said impulsively.