“We can only wait and see what God will send her. As it is, she is a blessing in the house.”
“Yes. Still with your large family and your many cares, she must be a constant anxiety to you both night and day.”
“Well, we get used with even care and anxiety. And she is a happy little creature naturally. Allison has helped us greatly with her. She is very kind and sensible in all her ways of doing for her.”
“And who is Allison?”
It was on Mrs Hume’s lips to say, “We do not know who she is,” but she did not say it.
“She came to fill Kirstin’s place. Poor Kirstin was called home to nurse her mother, who is lingering still, though she was supposed to be dying when her daughter was sent for.”
And then Mrs Hume went on to speak of something else.
Allison was “coming to herself,” growing “like other folk,” only bonnier and better than most. There was no need to call attention to her as in any way different from the rest. Allison had been good to Marjorie, and Marjorie was fond of Allison. That was all that need be said even to Mrs Esselmont. But the lady and Allison were good friends before all was done.
For many of Mrs Esselmont’s lonely days were brightened by the visits of the child Marjorie. And though the pony carriage was sometimes sent for her, and though she enjoyed greatly the honour and glory of driving away from the door in the sight of all the bairns who gathered in the street to see, she owned that she felt safer and more at her ease in the arms of “her own Allie,” and so when it was possible, it was in Allison’s arms that she was brought home.
If there had been nothing else to commend her to the pleased notice of Mrs Esselmont, Allison’s devotion to the child must have done so. And this stately young woman, with her soft voice, and her silence, and her beautiful, sorrowful eyes, was worth observing for her own sake. But Allison was as silent with her as with the rest of her little world, though her smile grew brighter and more responsive as the days went on.