Only one course lay open to her, that was plain; but yet her heart rebelled hotly against the circumstances which made this one course the only right one.
"There never was such a girl for getting into scrapes,", she groaned. "And this time I've not only got myself into one, but Gloriana as well. It will be six weeks at the very least before Miss Davis can come home, and there is no telling when Mrs. Goodale will be back. It is out of the question for Mrs. McKittrick to leave her husband just when he needs her most, even though she does offer to come. No, it's up to me, as Susie says. And I did want to go to Catalina with Myra so much! Here's my whole summer spoiled just because of a hasty promise.
"Tabitha Catt! Aren't you ashamed of yourself! You know right well that Mrs. McKittrick never could have gone to the city if you hadn't taken charge of her children, and the chances are that Mr. McKittrick would have died without her. He isn't wholly out of danger even yet. You selfish wretch! What do you think of a person who will talk the way you have been doing? Oh, dear, what a queer world it is! I wouldn't mind so much if Gloriana didn't have to suffer, too; but it is too bad to keep her here on the boiling desert when she might be enjoying life on the Island or at the beach. It wouldn't be so bad if those awful boys weren't here, either; but they are the limit. I am on edge every minute of the day, looking for the next outbreak. I don't believe they can be good. And yet—there's no other way—out of it. I can't let Mrs. McKittrick come home just because I am too utterly selfish to stay here myself. She has been so good to me. And it is positively out of the question for her to have the children with her."
Undecided, rebellious, unhappy, Tabitha crossed the room to the window, and stood looking out over the barren mountainside. Should she? Could she? What ought she to do? On the other side of a little gully just opposite the window, sat Irene, rocking to and fro on a teetering stone, and singing in a high, sweet treble to a battered rag-doll, hugged tightly to her breast. The words floated up to the girl in the window, indistinct at first, but growing clearer as the singer forgot her surroundings; and Tabitha suddenly found herself listening to the queer, garbled words of the song that fell from the childish lips.
"What in creation does she think she is singing?" she asked herself in amazement, recognizing with a fresh pang the tune Gloriana had begun the day with.
Irene finished the verse and commenced again:
"Maxwellton breaks her bonnet,
And nearly swallows two,
An' 'twas their hat and her locket
Gave me a pummy stew.
Gave me a pummy stew
Which near forgot can be,
And for bonnet and a locket
I'd lame a downy deed."
Three times she repeated the distorted version of that grand old song, and somehow the frown of perplexity smoothed itself from the listener's brow.
"Dear little girl," she whispered; "it's your father and your mother! I am a selfish old heathen! Of course I will stay as long as I am needed!"
Quietly returning to the kitchen where Gloriana sat pretending to sew, she laid the mother's letter on the table before the seamstress, and when the gray eyes had read the message and glanced inquiringly up at the dark face beside her, Tabitha nodded her head. "Yes," she half-whispered. "I can't desert them now." Then after a moment of silence, she added, "But you will go with Myra, Glory. Please! I'd feel so much better, knowing that you were having a good time."