"Jest you keep quiet," said Mrs. Conner, "and set still. I'm going out to the kitchen to heat this beef tea." For the first time, Emmy observed that Mrs. Conner carried a glass jar insufficiently wrapped in newspaper. Directly she was heard clattering among the saucepans. Miss Ann stiffened into a rigid attitude, and her face assumed a rapt expression. Emmy locked her fingers and sat still. At this moment she was startled by a soft noise outside, and a young fellow pushed a handsome, flushed face into the triangle between the window curtains and beckoned with a look of entreaty. Emmy's heart jumped into her throat. It was Albert. She didn't care whether he rode with Susan Baker or not; it was Albert who loved her; she knew it. If she could only go out to him! But Miss Ann shook her head and laid a mystic finger on her lips. Emmy, too, laid a finger on her lips; but her finger trembled and her eyes swam in tears. Albert stood passive and bewildered. The moments dragged on. Really there were not so many of them; a scant half an hour covered the flight of time; but to Emmy, uncertain whether her greatly tried lover might not have to go back to an expected train at any one of them, and to Albert, who did have a train on his mind and had ridden swiftly up to his sweetheart's for the briefest of interviews, those minutes seemed an hour. Yet Albert knew better, having his watch in hand and waving it and pointing at it, the better to explain his hurry. Once Emmy mustered courage in an access of desperation to rise to her feet, but the look of horror on Miss Ann's features dropped her like a club.
Albert's mind darted blindly from one conjecture of disaster to another. At one minute he was ready to march in rashly before Miss Ann and demand what was the matter; at another he was cold at the thought of blundering in on a deathbed.
He gasped with relief when the door opened and Miss Keith came out, smiling and calling: "Mrs. Conner! Mrs. Conner! hurry up that beef tea, and make some strong coffee as soon as you can!"
Then he did venture to come into the room, essaying a general bow and smile.
"I hope Aunty Darter is better!" he stammered. The children of the old friends had always given them a brevet relationship. Mrs. Darter was "Aunty Darter" to Albert, and Mrs. Glenn "Aunty Lida" to the Darter girls.
"Mrs. Darter will be well to-morrow," said Miss Keith, quietly; "she is going to take some coffee—"
"And some toast and plum jam," interrupted Mrs. Darter herself. "I know Mrs. Conner has been making jam. The times I've hankered after jam these last months! I'm going to eat everything I didn't dast to—"
"By degrees," said Miss Keith, "as the mental power grows stronger."
"Is that Albert?" said Mrs. Darter. "Albert, lift me up while I drink that beef tea."
Albert and Emmy held her while Mrs. Conner fed her a cup of the tea. They laughed hysterically, with tears in their eyes, as Mrs. Darter sighed weakly. "Oh, but that's good!" while Mrs. Conner radiated satisfaction and Miss Ann rocked to and fro, announcing that it was "mirac'lus!" They did not comprehend what had happened; they could not look into the future and a time when Mrs. Darter should throw herself with energy into preparing for Emmy's marriage; they only dimly foresaw her recovery and reconciliation with the common pleasures of life; but it was enough for Emmy that her mother's black hour had passed, and for Albert that he was close to Emmy, and that there was a vague omen of happiness in the atmosphere.