'He is a charge indeed,' said his aunt. 'And to think that all this time he might have been really improving at school.'
I could say nothing more, but I did grieve that she couldn't take things in a different spirit.
'It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.' Miss Lally had a fine time for her knitting just then, with Master Francis out of the way. Of course if he had been at school there would have been no difficulty, and she had planned to have his socks ready to send him on his birthday, the end of March. Now she had got on so fast—one sock finished and the heel of the other turned, though not without many sighs and even a few tears—that she hoped to have them as a surprise the first day he came down to the nursery.
'I'll have to begin working in the attic again, after that,' she said to me, 'for I'm going to make a pair for baby.'
'That's to say if the weather gets warmer,' I said to her. 'You certainly couldn't have sat up in the attic these last few weeks, Miss Lally.'
CHAPTER X
THE NEW BABY
The weather did improve. The winter having been so unusually severe was made up for, as I think often happens, by a bright and early spring. By the beginning of April Master Francis was able to be out again, though of course only for a little in the middle of the day, and we had to be very careful lest he should catch the least cold. I was exceedingly glad, really more glad than I can say, that his getting well went through without any backcasts. For himself he was really better than the doctor had dared to hope, but as he began to move about more freely I was grieved to see that the stiffness of his leg seemed worse than before his illness. I don't think it pained him much, at least he didn't complain.