Mary Jane’s florid face turned two shades paler. “I expect she’s going to die,” she whimpered.
And over in the big drawing-room, their mistress was just beginning to blame herself for keeping them so long. She arose hastily from the music-stool. “And now it is good-by.” She laid a gentle hand on each head. “Run out and get into the carriage,” for Simmons had been waiting all this time.
She opened the big oaken door, and waited to see them off—then turned back with a curious light on her sallow face.
And Polly and Davie being set down at the gate of the little brown house, raced up to the big green door, and burst in. “I’ve a plant—a dear, little plant,” announced Polly, raising it high.
“And see my slate,” Davie tried to reach higher than Polly, “and it’s all my very own,—it is, Mamsie.”
CHAPTER XVI
AT GRANDMA BASCOM’S
“DAVIE must go over and sit with Grandma Bascom,” said Mrs. Pepper slowly. She looked worried as she glanced up from her sewing by the window; then she smiled brightly over to him.
“Oh, Mamsie,” began Polly in dismay.
Davie laid down his slate carefully on the table, and ran over to Mother Pepper’s chair.
“You see, Davie,” said Mrs. Pepper, snipping off a little thread hanging from the sleeve to the coat she was trying to finish, “no one else can be spared, and Grandma mustn’t be left alone, now that she is sick.”