“It is not worth mentioning, Rosanna,” answered Uncle Robert. “Besides, I didn’t have just that in mind. However, I hear the car and will leave you before—before I do anything I regret.”
He went off, and Rosanna watched him through the window as he started his car. He was real jerky with it, and it sputtered and missed, and went off with a leap.
“He is all tired out,” thought Rosanna.
CHAPTER VIII
Time passed, a great many things happening. Gwenny, accompanied by her mother (there being plenty of money for everything), was taken away to the place of her great trial. When the question arose as to what should be done with Mary and Tommy and Myron and Luella and Baby Christopher, Rosanna thought of Minnie, always so good and kind. She went to see her, and the result was that Minnie volunteered to stay at Gwenny’s and run the little house and take care of the children as long as Mrs. Harter was needed in Cincinnati. Both Doctor MacLaren and Mr. Horton went with Mrs. Harter and Gwenny, and made the journey as comfortable as they possibly could. The great Doctor Branshaw, after seeing his patient, said that she must have at least a week of rest under his own eye before he would be willing to try the operation. So Gwenny was settled in a sunny room at the hospital where she at once became the pet of the ward and Doctor MacLaren and Mr. Horton came home.
Late in the afternoon, the very next Sunday, Mr. Horton came into the house looking the picture of gloom. He scarcely spoke to his mother and Rosanna but rushed up to his room and immediately there was a sound of things being dragged around, and many footsteps. And the door opened and shut a great many times. Mrs. Horton wondered what that boy was up to now and went on reading. But Rosanna listened with a black suspicion growing in her mind.
And, sure enough, Mr. Horton came down presently to announce that he was going away for a few weeks. He was getting stale, he said, and needed a little change. When he saw Rosanna’s round eyes fixed on him, he looked away but repeated that he felt stale.
“It is that War,” said his mother, as though the war should be severely reprimanded. “Before you went into that war, you were always contented. Now nothing contents you for long.”