“Oh, is that all? That's no reason. Think of something else.”
Idella rubbed her face hard on the pillow. “You dress up cats.”
She lifted her face, and looked with eyes of laughing malice into Annie's, and Annie pushed her face against Idella's neck and cried, “You're a rogue!”
The little one screamed with laughter and gurgled: “Oh, you tickle! You tickle!”
They had a childish romp, prolonged through the details of Idella's washing and dressing, and Annie tried to lose, in her frolic with the child, the anxieties that had beset her waking; she succeeded in confusing them with one another in one dull, indefinite pain.
She wondered when Mr. Peck would come for Idella, but they were still at their belated breakfast when Mrs. Bolton came in to say that Bolton had met the minister on his way up, and had asked him if Idella might not stay the week out with them.
“I don' know but he done more'n he'd ought.
“But she can be with us the rest part, when you've got done with her.”
“I haven't begun to get done with her,” said Annie. “I'm glad Mr. Bolton asked.”
After breakfast Bolton himself appeared, to ask if Idella might go up to the orchard with him. Idella ran out of the room and came back with her hat on, and tugging to get into her shabby little sack. Annie helped her with it, and Idella tucked her hand into Bolton's loose, hard fist, and gave it a pull toward the door.