"What? I swan! To see the elder!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "What she needs is a doctor, not a minister. What do you think of that, Prudence?"
"I hope Elder Minnett will be able to put her in better mind," sighed his wife. "That girl must have a very wicked heart, indeed, if she isn't really crazy."
CHAPTER XXVI
ELDER MINNETT HAS HIS SAY
Another night counted among the interminable nights which have dragged their slow length across the couch of sleeplessness. To Sheila, lying in the four-poster—a downy couch, indeed, for a quiet conscience—the space of time after she blew out her lamp and until the dawn passed like the sluggish coils of some Midgard serpent. An eternity in itself.
She came down to her daily tasks again with no change in her looks, although her voice had the same placid, kindly tone which had cheered the old people for these many weeks. But they both were worried about her.
"Maybe she's been working too hard, Prudence," ventured the old man. "Can it be so, d'ye think?"
"She says she likes to work. She's a marvel of a housekeeper, Ira. I don't mean to put too much on her, but I can't do much myself, spry as I do feel this fall. And she won't let me, anyway."
"I know, I know," muttered Cap'n Ira. "She's with you like she is with me. Always running to help me, or to pick up something I let fall, or to fetch and carry. A kinder girl never breathed. I swan! What should we do without her, Prue? That Tunis—"