"Well—" began my father, his clear, scrutinizing eyes fixed on Darton.
"A-nother sign," expostulated Mr. Darton, "of what ye might call the smallness of human van-ity. We must forgive 'er. Ye see Selma was gettin' so upset with her rancorous gossipin'—perhaps I should have been more careful—but it was a question of Selma and—"
"Quite right, Darton," my father nodded to him. "I'm going up for a moment."
I had walked to the front window with its starched, lacy curtain; and stood still, looking out in a puzzled maze at the strangeness of the morning's happenings, a certain sense of disconsolateness stealing over me. Beyond the row of dark, spare trees I could see a gaunt figure in a black skirt and a bumpy red shawl moving along the road; and the picture of her, scurrying away, remained, as such apparently unimportant figures often will, sharply engraven on my mind. As I recall it in late years, I often wonder how my father could have mistaken the lying, rancorous woman of Con Darton's description for this stern-lipped creature, who had gone by wordlessly, shutting the door gently behind her, a door that she was never to re-open.
I turned to find myself alone in the room. Mr. Darton had disappeared as unexpectedly but more quietly than he had entered. I could hear my father's footsteps going softly about upstairs; and his voice, which though quick and crisp, had a soothing quality, talking in a gentle monotone to some one. After about ten minutes he came to the head of the steps and called to me.
"Mrs. Darton says will you come up, Tom?"
Knees quivering with the queerness of it all as well as with the icy frigidity of the hallway, I mounted the uncarpeted stairs.
Following in the direction of the voices, I came to a dark, low-ceilinged room with a pine bed, on which lay a withered-looking woman with sparsely lashed eyelids and fine, straight, straw-colored hair. Near her was a small oblong bundle, wrapped round with a bright patch-work quilt; and out of this bundle a cry issued. As I peered into it, a red weazened face stared back at me, the eyes opening startlingly round. I looked long in wonder. The woman sighed; and, my gaze reverting to her, I thought suddenly of what a neighbor had once said to my father, "Selma Perkins used to be the prettiest girl in school. She was like the first arbutus flowers." Surely this woman with her pallid skin and her faded spiritless eyes could not have been the one they meant!
There was some talk between my Father and his patient, the gist of which I could not get, absorbed as I was with the face inside the patch-work quilt. We went out silently, after I had taken a last, long look into the bundle.—Lisbeth had come into my world.