“I’ve pricked the message all down with a pin on the inside of an envelope I had in my pocket; I had no pencil. I will read it to you, but if you forget you can make it out again from this, I know; or if you will lay this on a clean sheet of paper and rub dry bluing on it it will mark down the words plainly. I have often done embroidery patterns that way at school.”
Mrs. Jones gave another admiring shake of her head toward the washbowl and pitcher, and rose to go on her errand, promising to come back directly.
“Coventry School: Elfie is with me. Come at once to the Secor House, Troy, N. Y.
“M. A. Stubbs.”
So ran the dispatch which Marion had pricked upon the paper after a fashion she had learned from the girls at school for copying and transferring braiding patterns.
Sally, the good-natured maid, came to the door then with a tray of breakfast which Marion put on the table and partook of very sparingly, reserving the best for Elfie, who still slept on, although it was almost twelve o’clock.
There were three little taps with a finger-nail on the door in about half an hour, and Marion, recognizing the signal agreed upon, let in Mrs. Jones, who had sent off the dispatch, and as the result of talking over the matter with “pa,” to whom some explanation of her visit to the hotel had to be made, had thought of a new cause for anxiety, which was a possibility that Elfie’s long sleep might be the effect of an overdose of the quieting drops.
“And pa,” said Mrs. Jones, “advises waking of her up directly, and, if it can’t be done, getting in a doctor to see her.”
Frightful fears suggested themselves to Marion as Mrs. Jones gave “pa’s” impressive advice, and she turned Elfie’s face toward her and gently tried to awaken her; it was not an easy thing to do, but at last the heavy lids were lifted, and, with a little fretful cry Marion had never heard from her till the night before, she had lifted her head up and looked around.
“Marion is with you; look, look, dear, it is your own Marion. Can’t you see me? Don’t you know me?”
The child looked up at her sleepily a moment with neither wonder nor recognition in her eyes, and then laid her head on the pillow and slept again.