"They always send to father's shop for vegetables," said Emma. "We'll give a note to Joseph, and tell him to bribe their man, Edwards, to give it into Susan's hands somehow to-morrow. Now then, who'll write the note?"
"You'd better write it," said Florence; "you've got a better scribble than I have."
Emma, feeling very conceited and important, seated herself by a table and wrote the following words:
"Dear Susan Marsh, Maud Thompson, and Star Lestrange" ["Don't I feel grand, talking to them by their Christian names?" thought the girl as she finished this portion of her letter, bending forward and squiggling her tongue into her cheek as she proceeded]:
"We are awfully sorry we can't have our fun, but sickness has to be respected. We'll agree to say nothing about it if you three will come and have supper with us on Wednesday night. You can easily manage, and we'll manage to get you home without any trouble. You see, the ladder that you were placing for us will do for yourselves, and you can get in by the attic window and creep to bed. Anyhow, that's your affair. Our affair is that you have got to come or my father and Florence's father will make a shindy, and then there will be—oh, yes, I can't help being vulgar—the fat in the fire. You will come, all three of you, and have supper with us here; and won't we give you a right jolly feast! Your affectionate friend,
Emma Manners.
"P. S.—If you come, we'll do everything in our power to help you three girls to hide up the fact that you were out once in a while in the middle of the night."
Emma's letter was much commented on and approved of by her companions. Finally, Florence went back to her own house, feeling that, on the whole, supper at the Mannerses' might be as amusing and instructive and fascinating as even the stolen feast in the front attic.
CHAPTER XXVII GOD'S WILL
When Star reached home that evening she found the whole place in a sort of hush. Christian was asleep, and on that sleep all her future hung. If she awakened with her fever gone she would be extremely weak, but with great care she might be pulled through. The doctor himself sat by her bedside, his hand on her feeble, fluttering pulse. Miss Peacock also was in the room, and the professional nurse and Jessie occupied another of the white rooms just beyond. There was intense emotion all over the house. No one thought at that moment of anyone but the girl who lay, as it were, in the shadow of death. She was loved then as she had not been loved during her days of health. Each girl, as she sat with her companion, had something to say with regard to Christian Mitford. One girl noticed how expressive were her eyes, and another said that she looked a perfect lady. Her class-mates were unanimous, too, in remarks with regard to her talents: she was so forward in all her studies; she was so imaginative; she wrote such brilliant little papers. Then her voice had such a magical quality in it; it stirred the heart; particularly when she read.
Some of the teachers who were resident in the house also stood and talked of the sick girl. "She would have done us credit," said Miss Forest. Professor French said he never heard a girl of her age read Paradise Lost as she did. He was very much impressed with her; he said she had the dramatic quality to a remarkable degree. "Well, well, it does seem sad!"