Mrs. Sutton wiped her spectacles and gave the note to her niece.
"There is but one thing for me to do, you see, my dear. Jack! I
shall be ready in twenty minutes."
If the line of duty wavered before her sight during the three-mile
drive, it lay straight and distinct ahead of her when she stood in
Rosa's chamber.
"My child!" she ejaculated, upon the threshold "you did not tell me
that you were confined to your bed!"
"I ought not to be!"
The rebellious pout and tone were Rosa's, as were also the black
eyes--unnaturally large and bright though they were--but the pretty
lips were wan, and strained by lines of pain; the pomegranate flush
was no longer variable, and was nestled in hollows, and the hands
were wasted to translucency.
"I am quite strong enough to be up, and would be, if my tyrannical
doctors and their tractable tool, my lord and master, had not
decreed that I shall lie here until midday, if I am very obedient;
eat my meals; take their poisonous medicines, and abstain from
coughing. If I offend in any of these particulars I am not to rise
until three o'clock--when they are in an especially glum humor--not
at all that day. But now you are here, we shall combat them
valorously. Dear Auntie!" putting the thin arms about the old lady's
plump neck, and laughing through a spring rain of tears, "how good
and safe it is to be with you again! And you are the same kind,
lovely darling! no older by a day--no uglier by a solitary wrinkle!
I couldn't sleep last night, for fearing you would not come to me!"
"You should not have doubted it, dear!" said the motherly voice,
blithe as affectionate, while soft, agile fingers undid the tight
embrace, and commenced, from the force of habit, to arrange the
tumbled bed-clothes. "Wherever I can be of most use is the place in
which I wish to be."
"I know you have always lived for others," answered Rosa, with an
involuntary sigh, a shadow glooming her eyes.
"For whom else should I live and work?" laughed Mrs. Sutton, in her
cheerful, guileless fashion. "My personal wants are few and easily
supplied, and I like to be busy. I account it a privilege to be able
to fuss about my friends when they are ailing."
By way of doing as she liked, she attacked the disorderly room.
Rosa's three trunks stood in a row against the wall--all of them
open--the tray of the largest lying beside it upon the carpet, the
lid of this thrown back and the contents in utter confusion; laces
hanging over the sides and trailing upon the floor. A casket of
medicines was uppermost in the next trunk, crushing a confused
medley of collars, ribbons, gloves, and handkerchiefs. A
dressing-gown lay upon the seat of one chair, a skirt over the back
of another; boots and slippers peeped from the valance of the
antique bedstead; there was a formidable array of bottles upon
mantel and bureau--conspicuous among them cod-liver oil, cologne,
and laudanum--incongruous appendages to the various appliances of
the toilette scattered between them.