Mardie moved the ornaments on the dressing-table with nervous fingers.
“It is getting late,” she said. “Put on your hat, Mildred, and let us have a stroll in the garden before it is dusk.”
Chapter Five.
Sunshine Again!
The next day brought reassuring news of Robbie, who had had a good night, and was distinctly better. Mildred was devoutly thankful; but now that the strain of anxiety was relieved, the loneliness of her position began to weigh upon her with all the old intensity. She grew tired of reading and writing letters, and the silence of the big, empty house weighed upon her spirits.
“Three days—and already it seemed like a month! Then what will a month feel like? and two months?” she asked herself in a tremor of alarm. “It is all very well for Mardie to say, ‘Take one day at a time, and don’t worry about the future.’ She wouldn’t find it so easy in my place! Bertha might send me a letter! I didn’t expect her to write the first day she was at home, but she might have managed it the second, under the circumstances!”
Miss Margaret was engaged with callers; the servants busy at their work. Mildred was at her wits’ end to know what to do with herself. She flattened her face against the window, and stared gloomily down the drive.
“Two more visitors coming to see Mardie. That means another half-hour at the least before I can go downstairs to have tea. An old lady, and a young one in a light dress, and a hat with pink roses. She doesn’t look a bit nice!” pronounced Mildred in critical spirit; “I shall dress much better than that when I am grown up. Her boots are awful!—old, shabby things beneath a grand dress. I would rather spend less on finery and have respectable feet. The old lady is as broad as she is long; her bonnet is crooked! Why doesn’t the girl put it straight before they go into the house? I wouldn’t allow my mother to be so untidy! She looks fearfully hot!”