“And so you are very glad to see me, Lily?” said Mrs Blair, smiling upon the child’s upturned face.
The bright smile with which the girl answered faded quickly as her aunt continued:
“And you are very poor now, are you?”
“Yes, we are poor; and, yet, not so very poor, either. We have had some work to do, my mother and I; and we have never been a whole day without food. If Archie were only well again! That’s our worst trouble, now. And mother, too, though she won’t own to being ill, often gets very weary. But now that you are come, all will be well again.”
“And maybe you’ll take us all home to Glen Elder for a wee while, as you used to do,” said Archie, speaking for the first time since his aunt’s coming.
“Archie so pines for the country,” said Lilias; “and we can hardly make ourselves believe that you live anywhere but at Glen Elder.”
“My home now is very unlike Glen Elder,” said Mrs Blair, sadly. “But there is fresh air there, and there are bonny heather hills; so cheer up, Archie, laddie; it will go hard with me if I canna get you to Kirklands for a while at least, and you’ll be strong and well before winter yet.”
The boy smiled sadly enough, and the tears started in his eyes; but he did not answer.
“Archie is thinking that, maybe, he’ll never be well again,” said his sister. “The doctor says he may be a cripple all his life.”
This was a new and unexpected sorrow to Mrs Blair; and her countenance expressed the dismay she felt, as she questioned them about it.