The Awakening of Helena Richie - Page 64/229

April brightened into May before David came to live at the Stuffed

Animal House. Dr. Lavendar had his own reasons for the delay, which he

did not share with anybody, but they resulted in a sort of intimacy,

which Helena, eager for the child, could not refuse.

"He needs clothes," Dr. Lavendar put her off; "I can't let him visit

you till Mary gets his wardrobe to rights."

"Oh, let me get his little things."

--Now, who would have supposed that Dr. Lavendar was so deep! To begin

with, he was a man, and an old man, at that; and with never a chick or

a child of his own. How did he know what a child's little clothes are

to a woman?--"Well," he said, "suppose you make him a set of night-

drawers."

Helena's face fell. "I don't know how to sew. I thought I could buy

what he needed."

"No; he has enough bought things, but if you will be so kind, my dear,

as to make--"

"I will!" she promised, eagerly, and Dr. Lavendar said he would bring

David up to be measured.

Her sewing was a pathetic blunder of haste and happiness; it brought

Dr. Lavendar and David up to the Stuffed Animal House very often, "to

try on." David's coming was always a delight, but the old man fretted

her, somehow;--he was so good. She said so to William King, who

laughed at the humor of a good woman's objection to goodness. The

incongruity of such a remark from her lips was as amusing as a child's

innocently base comment.

[Illustration: Her sewing was a pathetic blunder of haste and

happiness. Awakening of Helena Richie] William had fallen into the habit of drawing up and calling out "good

morning" whenever he and his mare passed her gate. Mrs. Richie's lack

of common sense seemed to delight the sensible William. When he was

with her, he was in the frame of mind that finds everything a joke. It

was a demand for the eternal child in her, to which, involuntarily,

she responded. She laughed at him, and even teased him about his

shabby buggy with a gayety that made him tingle with pleasure. She

used to wonder at herself as she did it--conscious and uneasy, and

resolving every time that she would not do it again. She had none of

this lightness with any one else. With Dr. Lavendar she was reserved

to the point of coldness, and with young Sam Wright, matter-of-fact to

a discouraging degree.