Forgive me, Lord; but it is hard
To be a banian tree!
The doctor’s eyes filled. “Thank God,” he said, “she won’t have to be, this time!”
CHAPTER XII
THE END OF THE INTERREGNUM
THE Grafton children stood in a row, watching their father and Barbara establish David in the big Morris chair, on the occasion of his first trip downstairs. Joy and awe were struggling for supremacy in their hearts, but were carefully concealed after the fashion of young America.
“Well, David,” said Jack, jocularly, “you look just exactly like a collapsed balloon. Remember how nice and round you used to be? Now, hurry up and get there again. It was becoming.”
“He reminds me of the pictures of the famine-sufferers in India,” remarked Gassy. “How their ribs did stick out, and how funny their hands were,—like claws.”
“David looks to me like the sweetest small boy ever made,” said Barbara, quietly, as she bent down to kiss the pale lips of the little fellow, and tucked the afghan around him more closely.