“I should think God might be good to auntie, ’cause auntie is so good to Min.”
“I think you had better not consult Min on points of faith and doctrine,” said Clara. “She seems to inherit some of her grandpapa’s heresies.”
“Auntie Clara, who is my grandpapa?”
“Why, your doctor, as you call him.”
“Is he? honest and true, Auntie Clara? Then I shall call him grandpapa.”
“No, no,” said Susie, with a faint flush on her face. “Call him just as you do now.” She was wondering for the thousandth time how it would be when Minnie commenced to go to school, for example. Children would tell her of her father, and perhaps say ill things of her mother. Already the child’s resemblance to Mrs. Forest was remarkable, and grew more marked every day. The likeness consisted particularly in a kind of droop to the eyelids toward the outer corners, giving a dreamy, refined expression. Only a short time before, when Min was playing at the gate, a little girl, one of Mrs. Kendrick’s guests, came and made her acquaintance, and asked her to walk with her. Min ran and got permission of “auntie,” and started off. They turned up shortly after on the doctor’s broad door-steps, and Mrs. Forest, recognizing one of Mrs. Kendrick’s visitors, made the children go in, and treated them to cake. She was greatly struck by the rare beauty of the little blonde, and asked her her name. “Sha’n’t tell,” was the reply, of course. The doctor came in a few minutes later. At the sight of Min seated on her grandmother’s knees, eating jelly-cake with great gusto, he burst out laughing. This evidently displeased Min, and kept her from obeying her first impulse, which was to run to “my doctor,” as she always called him. “How very maternal you are, Fannie! Whose child is that?”
“She won’t tell me her name,” said Mrs. Forest, “but she is one of Mrs. Kendrick’s friends. Is she not lovely?” she added, toying with Min’s rich, sunny hair. The doctor took the child and asked his wife to follow him. Standing before the mirror in the drawing-room, he held the child’s face beside his wife’s, saying, “Look at that child’s eyes, and then at yours.”
“Good heavens, doctor! You don’t mean—”
“That it is your only grandchild!”
Mrs. Forest tied on Min’s hat, and suggested to the older girl that she had better not bring the little one so far from home again.