With a resolute gleam in her gray eyes, a settled purpose in every line of her strong, honest face, she began to wrap the child in the soft, warm shawl which she had partially removed, paying no attention to the woman in charge—who at that moment came into the room and began to busily brandish a great feather duster—although she was uncomfortably conscious that she was being regarded with a curious, questioning glance.
But Miss Nancy Porter had run many a difficult gauntlet, and faced many emergencies, during her checkered life, and her stanch heart and brave front did not fail her now.
Having arranged everything about her charge to her satisfaction, she arose and deliberately walked from the room, passed out of the nearest door of the one beyond, and, joining the hurrying crowd that surging toward the outward-bound trains, without giving another thought to the errand which had brought her to town, found herself just in season to board a return local.
She did not see in the car a person whom she knew; yet, knowing that there might be acquaintances on the train, she decided to leave it at a station two miles below her own town, and about a mile and a half from her home, which was located between the two villages.
It was dark when she alighted, and it was with a deep sigh of satisfaction that she slipped away in the gloom.
She did not meet a single person on the way—it was a lonely road, with only a few scattered farmhouses to be passed—and arrived at her own door just as the old-fashioned clock of a previous generation standing in the hall solemnly tolled off the hour of eight.
A glance in at the kitchen window as she passed had told her that Sarah was still upstairs with her patient, and, passing softly around to the front door, which she noiselessly opened with a latchkey, she walked through the “best room” to the “parlor bedroom,” where she laid her charge upon the bed, thankful for the potency of the drug which still held its senses locked in slumber, and glad to have her aching arms relieved of their burden.
Then, closing both doors after her, she passed up-stairs to the sick-room, removing her bonnet and wrap as she went, when she dismissed Sarah to her interrupted work in the kitchen below, and then sat down to rest and await the awakening of the frail sleeper upon the bed.
An hour later, Miss Porter suddenly appeared in her bright, cheerful kitchen, bearing a beautiful babe in her arms, while a tender expression seemed to have softened and illumined her usually grave, almost austere face.