“You must not give up now, dear; father may need our aid. I don’t believe you have had any breakfast. We will all be wanting coffee by and by. We were just sitting down to the table when the message came. Don’t be disheartened. Miss Frean will recover, she is so beautifully healthy and strong. Remember what an outdoor life she has led!”
As Dorothy chattered on to distract the other girl’s attention, she was busily doing a number of important acts—lighting an oil stove and placing water to boil, finding the coffee and setting a corner of the kitchen table with a cup, saucer and plate.
Still Tory sat in the chair where she had been placed, but by and by drank some coffee and suggested that Mr. Fenton be persuaded to do the same thing.
For a little Dorothy’s hopefulness and warm vitality wakened a response in her. This ebbed away as the moments passed and no word came that Miss Frean was recovering consciousness.
Now and then, like a chord repeating itself, a quotation she had learned the evening before came and went in her consciousness:
“We will work thy will, who love thee.”
CHAPTER IV
TORY’S DREAMS
SEVERAL weeks later Dorothy McClain and Victoria Drew were again in the kitchen adjoining the living-room of the House in the Woods.
Upon this afternoon their state of mind was altogether unlike their former one. This was apparent both in manner and expression.