“Cassie—how thin you are, child! And you look so tired!”
“Timmy’s been so ill!”
“But he’s better?”
“Oh, yes—but so weak still!”
“You’ve had a nurse?”
“Not these last two weeks. We couldn’t—we didn’t—really need her. I have my wonderful Sigma in the kitchen, you know.”
“But, my dear, with a tiny baby!”
The worn face brightened. “Ah, he’s such a dear! I don’t know what we would have done without him!”
A silence. Then Mrs. Rutledge said: “The worst is over, we hope. And the boys have been such a comfort!”
“They hung up their stockings,” Merle commented in her deep, serious little voice.