“Civil! yes, she was more civil indeed. She’d got quite sober by the afternoon, and the neighbours told her how near the boy was to death, and that the doctor said if it hadn’t been for the wise and prompt measures taken by the Miss Seawards before he arrived, he didn’t believe the boy would have lived—when they told her that, she said nothing. When the Miss Seawards came back in the afternoon, they tapped so gently at the door that you would have thought they were beggars who expected a scolding, an’ when Mrs Jake cried out gruffly in her man-like voice, ‘Who’s that?’ they replied as softly as if they had been doing some mischief, ‘May we come in?’ ‘May you come in?’ shouted Mrs Jake, so that you might have heard her half way down the street, as she flung the door wide open, ‘may angels from heaven come in? yes, you may come in!’ an’ with that she seized the younger one round the neck an’ fairly hugged her, for you see Mrs Jake has strong feelin’s, an’ is very fond of her boy, an’ then she went flop down on a chair, threw her apron over her head, and howled. I can call it by no other name.”
“The poor ladies were almost scared, and didn’t seem rightly to know how to take it, and Miss Kate—the younger one you know—had her pretty new summer dress awfully crushed by the squeeze, as well as dirtied, for Mrs Jake had been washin’, besides cleaning up a bit just before they arrived.”
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Maggie in great admiration. “I always thought there was a soft spot in Mrs Jake’s heart, if only a body could find it out.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Bright, impressively, “there’s a soft spot I believe in everybody’s heart, though in some hearts it’s pretty well choked up an’ overlaid—”
At that moment a bursting yell from the crib behind the door went straight to the soft spot in Mrs Davidson’s heart, and sank deeply into it.
“That blessed babby!” she cried, leaping up in such haste that her work went into the grate, in which, however, there was happily no fire.
“Oh! my darling! you’re Joe to the back-bone—though you are a girl—all bounce, an’ bang, an’ tenderness!”
Seizing the infant in her strong arms she gave it a hug which ought to have produced another yell, but the little one was tough, besides which, she was used to it, and said nothing. The calm did not last long, however. Little Mag, as she was called, felt that her interior somewhere was somehow in want of something, and took the usual way to publish the fact.
After that, conversation became impossible. A storm had burst upon the friends which increased rapidly, so Mrs Bright rose to say good-bye in the midst of a squall which ought to have blown her through the door-way or out at the window into the street. She was not irritated, however. As she left the house followed by the squall, which was soon moderated to a stiffish breeze by distance, the sound called up reminiscences of little Billy, and she smiled as she thought of the unvarying continuity of human affairs—the gush of infant memories, and the squalls of other days.