"Better keep it for a day or two, Miss Lefroy—you may find it serviceable; and remember the doctor's instruction."
He busies himself for a few moments propping up her foot with shawls and cushions, and then, as the horse is about to start, says in a low voice, looking up in her face entreatingly—
"I would try to make you happy."
"You are very kind," says poor Addie for the fourth and last time that day; and then the horse plunges forward, and she is off.
CHAPTER VI.
"What will they say? What will they do?" thinks Addie, with shuddering presentiment as she is being driven along the high-road to Nutsford. "And how can I tell them about it? Oh, the worst part of all is before me now! How can I tell them about it—how can I tell them? If I only knew how they'd take it—could only guess! But I can't—I can't! Aunt Jo will be pleased, I think. She will say it's an intervention of Providence, the turning of the tide, perhaps; but Aunt Jo is old, and can't feel like the young—and then of course she's not a Lefroy. That's the great point—she's not a Lefroy. Perhaps Bob will never speak to me again for letting him say so much to me as he did; perhaps Pauline will disown me too, if she hears Bob is so proud, so resentful, so tetchy about the family prestige! It may be an awful blow to him, poor darling—and he going away, too, full of sorrow and trouble already! Wouldn't it be better if I said nothing at all about it until he had left? But then—then—I've got only until to-morrow, and I've promised an answer. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what am I to do? Why did I go clambering up into that wretched tree, like the shameful tomboy that I am? Why didn't I study quietly at home as the aunt suggested—why, why? Good gracious, the farm already! How that horse flies! Perhaps they'll guess, they'll suspect something, when they see me in his brougham? And Hal is so vulgar, so exasperating when he begins to chaff, and Lottie asks such dreadful, dreadful questions!"
She peers forth anxiously before venturing to descend, and, to her great relief, sees that so far the coast is clear. Neither of the boys is about. Hal is not at his usual noonday pastime of shying stones at the pump, or worrying the donkey in the stubble-field. Bob is not, as is his wont, leaning against the hay-rick, smoking away in sullen gloom his last hours on shore. She hobbles up the little garden path and pushes open the farm-house door.
A dismal wailing sound issues from the stuffy, low-roofed parlor to the right, sacred to the family gentility.
"Oh, dear, dear, the aunt is at it again—worse than ever!" thinks Addie ruefully. "She's an awful spendthrift in tears, poor soul! At the rate she has been weeping for the last three months, she really must cry herself dry soon!"