“Well, you must be better to-morrow,” Letty would say, and go off to her ride, or perhaps to her tennis which she too played very well. And then Tiny would come in with her hair flying in her haste, as soon as her lesson was over. “Are you better, Mar?”
“Oh, yes a little, but I shall not go downstairs to-day,” the boy would say, smiling at her.
“Oh, it is too tiresome,” cried Tiny; “I want you to come with me and get some water-lilies out of the pond. Duke’s always so busy; he will never do anything. And I want you to come down the village with me to see the man about those little dachshund puppies. It is too bad of you, Mar, to be ill now. I want you so much.”
“I am very sorry, Tiny, but you see I can’t help myself.”
“Oh, you could if you would try hard; just put on a resolution and make up your mind, and do, do be better to-morrow!” cried Tiny with vehemence. It is to be feared that this earnestness was simply on Tiny’s own account, to whom Mar was a most serviceable follower—but the boy was grateful for this vigorous demand.
“I will if I can,” he said—and then Tiny flew off with her hair waving, and he remained till the next visitor arrived. To tell the truth it was rather pleasant to them all to find him there always ready to hear what they had to say; and when they expressed their impatience with his illness, or ordered him imperiously to get well, they were though unconsciously only half sincere. “It’s nice to have you to run to always, Mar,” Tiny said, who, being the youngest, was the most unabashed in the utterance of fact. And Mar smiled and replied that it was nice to have them all coming to him. “If I am ever dull I know I shall soon hear someone running upstairs.”
“But remember,” cried Tiny, “you have promised to be better to-morrow.”
“Oh yes,” said Mar, “I shall be better to-morrow.”
“If you don’t, I heard mamma say she would send for the doctor, Mar.”
“I shall be better,” cried the boy. And as a matter of fact he did drag himself downstairs and got out to the avenue in a dutiful endeavor to follow Tiny to see after the dachshund puppies; but he grew so pale, and so soon found out that he could not drag one foot after the other, that a great panic arose among the young people. Duke was called from his tennis (for there were visitors that afternoon and a great game was going on) by Tiny in a voice more like that of a signal man in a gale than of a young lady. “Duke!” she said, “Mar’s fainted!” which brought Duke with a rush like a regiment of cavalry across the lawn, followed by Letty, her white dress flashing like a ray of light across the shadows. Mar fainted! They flung themselves upon him where he half sat, half lay upon a great trunk of a tree which had lain there for years overgrown with moss and lichens—the very same upon which Mary his mother had once thrown herself before he was born.