"Hush, my dear child!" said he, in calm tones. "Be quiet, and then I will explain the matter to you. Your mother is not here, so there is no use in calling her."
"Marion said she was here," said Therese.
"Marion was wrong; she is not here, but I hope she is quite safe and well. We have no reason to think anything else. You have been, and are, very sick, but I hope you will soon be better, if you do as you are bid. When you are so, you shall hear all that there is to tell. Marion, go and tell your Aunt Barbara to bring the broth I asked her to have ready, but don't come back yourself."
Marion did her errand, and then went up to her room and burst into a flood of tears, though to save her life she could not have said exactly what she was crying about. Mortification, wounded vanity, perhaps a little fatigue, and—tell it not of a heroine!—a little too much plum-cake and cream tart, all contributed to her tears.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and Aunt Christian entered. "Duncan thought you would like to know that Therese has fallen quietly to sleep again," said she.
"I'm sure I am very glad," answered Marion, rather ashamed to accept the consideration after the hard thoughts she had just been entertaining of her uncle. Then, recurring to herself, as usual, "I suppose Uncle Duncan thinks it is all my fault?"
"He thinks you should have called him, as he told you," answered Christian. "Why didn't you?"
"I thought I could just as well manage her myself, and so I could if she had not been so unreasonable."
"We don't expect people in her circumstances to be anything but unreasonable," answered her aunt. She was silent a moment, and then said, "Marion, suppose we try to arrive at the bottom of this matter."
"I don't know what bottom there is to arrive at," said Marion, rather unwillingly. "It turned out just as it always does. I tried to be useful, and I am blamed and despised for it. That is all. I ought to be accustomed to such treatment by this time, but I am not, and I never shall be."