A Modern Cinderella, Amanda Minnie Douglas [free ereaders .txt] 📗

what she did or what she didn't do, and weren't snappy when she found fault. I used to think she needn't have rung for Marilla quite so much, but the child never minded running up and down."

"How has she been today?"

"Well, I don't just know; Dr. Baker said she must keep pretty still, so she's laid on the old lounge, but the babies would crawl over her. It does seem as if we must have someone else--an older person, though some of them object to taking out children. But if we want to get much sewing done--"

"I think I'll have a seamstress for a week or so," said Aunt Florence, "time goes on so fast."

Marilla had gone up stairs to her own bed, where Bridget had crooned over her in tender Irish fashion.

"An' I'm sore afraid them babies'll be the death of you, poor lamb! They drag on you so, and their chatter would drive me crazy."

"But they're so funny."

"I don't call it funny with their hundred and fifty wants," sniffed Bridget.

Marilla turned faint now and then but for several days she was not sent out with the children. Miss Armitage came over every day to inquire about both invalids. Mrs. Vanderveer dozed a good deal and the numbness seemed crawling further up her body.

"She may have another stroke and she may go just this way," said Mrs. Holmes, "I wouldn't give her more than a month at the longest. I've seen it so many times. But it is merciful for them not to last years."

It was mid-October then. The seamstress proved a treasure. Garments were completed and laid away.

"I want most of the work finished up in November," said Mrs. Borden, "then we can plan all the other matters."

"I shall have to look up some one else. I want a nurse to take up the children in the morning and wash and dress them, and they must go out. They're losing all their lovely weather. Marilla doesn't seem to get along at all. If she's going to develop some heart trouble she will just be good for nothing. Of course, when I took her she seemed healthy enough, and it was the best thing to do then. John has had some good luck this fall and we don't need to think of saving up money for the mortgage. I could afford a regular nurse, and it would ease me up so much. I don't suppose they'd take Marilla back at the Home."

"Talk to John about it if; we _could_ find a new place for her. Why, she would make a nice little waitress. If you could keep three girls," laughingly.

"Dear me, we must not spread out too rapidly, and somehow I'd hate to give her up. She trains the children so nicely. And have you noticed how sort of gentlemanly Jack is growing toward her? He was real rude."

Jack had experienced many qualms of conscience about throwing the ball that day, but Marilla made no reference to it. Still she might tell Bridget, she and Bridget were such cronies, and Bridget would make an awful fuss.

"Marilla," he said one night when she was getting him ready for bed--"I didn't mean to hurt you that day with the ball--you know. I didn't think girls were so tender."

"I was tired and there had been something stopping my breath like, now and then, maybe it wasn't the ball."

"You were good not to tell on a fellow. I'll never, never hurt you again, nor pinch you, nor be ugly to you. You're so sweet, Marilla," and he clasped his arms around her neck, kissing her.


CHAPTER XI

THE ARK OF LOVE

The glowing golden October weather had given place to several lowering days. Furnaces and grates were started up, and overcoats brought out, and pedestrians hurried along. Even children did not stop to play, for now a cold drizzle had set in.

It was very warm and cheery in Miss Armitage's library. There was a fire in the grate, a pot of beautiful red carnations on one stand, a great vase of roses on the other, and a dainty tea table set out with Wedgewood. Thursday afternoon she was always at home. From some cause there had been very few in. Jane came and put two big lumps of cannel coal on the fire and said a few words, then went to answer the ring at the door; it was Dr. Richards.

"I'm glad to see you," she said. "Will you please light a burner or two?"

"Oh, no, let us sit in this mysterious light and watch the blaze leaping over and around those black hillocks. Have you been busy today?"

"Not very. Some days I don't feel in a working humor. I had only two calls this afternoon. Will you have a cup of tea?"

"Yes; when have you been to the Bordens?"

"Yesterday."

"And how are the invalids?"

"Mrs. Vanderveer is sinking in a comatose state; she doesn't suffer, which _is_ a great blessing toward the last. As for Marilla"--she made a pause.

"Well--" inquiringly.

"I'm not satisfied, she has such a blue, tired look. But she is about as usual. Dr. Richards, I want her."

Something in the tone touched him. It seemed the cry of motherhood.

"Well, wouldn't they give her up?"

"I really think they would; a friend came to see if they did not want her nursemaid, a nice well trained girl of twenty; an excellent seamstress. She is going to California. Mrs. Borden told me this as we were down in the hall. Dr. Baker said something about the child's health that rather startled her. But before we could have any discussion another visitor called. She thinks Marilla doesn't have anything much to do; but the babies are a constant care. They want to be entertained every minute of the time. Violet is developing quite a temper and slaps her little nurse. All her mother said was 'Violet, that's naughty.' But you should have seen Pansy speak some Mother Goose rhymes. Marilla had been training her. The gestures, the roll of the eyes, the coquettish turn of the head was the daintiest thing you ever saw. Then she repeated--'Where are you going, my pretty maid?' and she had a little milk pail on her arm, and she managed to keep the two parts wonderfully distinct--it was remarkable in a child not three years old, and when she said--'Then I won't marry you, my pretty maid' and answered so pertly--'Nobody asked you, sir, she said,' it would have done credit to an exhibition. Her mother sprang up and kissed her rapturously, crying--'Isn't she the dearest and sweetest thing and the smartest! Think of her learning that and acting it off so completely, and not three years old! She is smarter than Violet'--and then Violet set up such a howl! Her mother pacified her by saying Marilla should tell her a piece, and after several efforts Cinderella did induce her to say by a great deal of prompting 'Milkman, Milkman, where have you been?' Think of the wear on the child's nerves, and she looked so tired. I really couldn't stand it a moment longer. They think she has nothing to do but just amuse those two strong irrepressible children who climb over her and torment her in every fashion. I can't stand it. I hardly slept last night thinking of it."

"Can't you bring her over for a visit?"

"I thought of proposing that. If I could persuade her to transfer the child to me--"

"But if she gets another nurse?"

"Yes, I must try. The strain on her is too great, and now for almost a week she has not been out of the house; Mrs. Borden bewails it for the childrens' sake. She thinks only of them with a mother's selfishness, and she doesn't give Marilla credit for these pretty ways or their intelligence. She is just their nurse girl. It is a cruel waste of the child's gifts."

"I'd like to see Dr. Baker; most of all I'd like to see Marilla, but it wouldn't be etiquette to call."

"I'll go tomorrow with courage enough to have a gentle talk or a straight out one," said Miss Armitage resolutely. "We try to save other lives, why not this one? And this one is dear to me. It has so much of promise in it, and life gets lonely sometimes."

He longed to come into it, but he kept his promise. Until she made some sign he must be content with friendship. He rose abruptly and said he must be going. She did not detain him.

It was raining a-softly now and he hurried along. His office was in a little ell part in a rather inviting looking house, and he took his meals with the tenant. The office boy was on the lookout for him, it was time he went home.

"There's a gentleman in there waiting for you," he said with his good-night.

The gentleman was comfortably ensconced in the Morris chair, smoking a cigar. Doctor Richards took a second look.

"Why, Lorimer!" he exclaimed. "Where have you dropped from? I haven't seen you in an age--but I'm glad, old fellow; I was feeling rather down; I should have had a gay presentiment."

"Remembering old times when we were both bloated aristocrats, favorites with the gods."

"And are now earning daily bread," laughed the doctor. "At least I am and trying to help suffering humanity. Isn't that neatly put?"

"I don't know whether I can claim all that; now and then I get some poor fellow's affairs out of a snarl and make him pay for it, and one end of something has drifted here to Newton and I'm after that, but I thought I'd hunt you up first. I've been here a good half hour."

"And supper is ready in the house. Then we will have a good hour before any one drops in. Come in," and he opened a side door into a hall.

There were three persons at the table, an elderly couple and a woman in the thirties. They made Mr. Lorimer cordially welcome and the supper was inviting. The guest asked some questions about Newton which was a quiet rather old fashioned town quite set in its ways.

Afterward they settled themselves comfortably in the office.

"I've come to hunt up some one--do you know anything about a Bethany Home for orphans, girls, I believe."

Dr. Richards roused from his lazy position. "Yes, I know about it, though I never been on the staff. Why?"

"I want to learn about a child placed there four or five years ago. Let me see," referring to a memorandum, "name, Marilla Bond; mother and father died in this town."

"Marilla Bond. Yes. I know the child. What of her?"

"I'll begin at the very first. Hardly two years ago Peter Schermerhorn died at the age of ninety-eight. He was the black sheep of an otherwise respectable family, went off and spent his portion in riotous living, afterward bought a tract of ground above Harlem, turned hermit, raised geese and ducks and pigs, married and had three daughters and they in turn married, glad, I suppose, to get away from the penurious living. So it went on. He had to give up the pigs and geese, did a little gardening and two years ago died without a will. Oddly enough he had kept a family record which has been of great service to us. The old