Part 16 (1/2)
”No, it's awfully crooked.”
For the next half-hour Babs labored hard, and Judy superintended, giving sharp criticisms and ordering the arrangements of the chamber with much peremptoriness.
”Now we must have flowers,” she exclaimed. ”You must go out to the garden, and pick all the violets you can get.”
”But it's very late to go out,” said Babs, ”and Miss Mills will be angry.”
”As if that mattered! Who cares who is angry when Hilda is coming? The worst Miss Mills can do is to punish you, and you won't mind that when you think about Hilda. I know where there are violets, white and blue, on that south bank after you pa.s.s the shrubbery; you know the bank where the bees burrow, and where we catch ladybirds in the summer; run, Babs, do run at once and pick all you can find.”
Judy's room was decorated to perfection. Judy herself lay in her white bed, with pink roses on her cheeks, and eyes like two faintly s.h.i.+ning stars, and smiles coming and going on her lips, and eager words dropping now and then from her impatient little tongue.
”What is the hour now, Aunt Marjorie? Is it really only half-past nine?”
”It is five-and-twenty to ten, Judy, and Miss Mills has gone in the fly to the station, and your Hilda will be back, if the train is punctual, by ten o'clock. How wonderfully well you look, my darling. I did right after all to let you sit up in bed to wait for your dear sister.”
”Yes, I am quite well, only--I hope Jasper won't come too.”
”Oh, fie! my pet. You know you ought not to say that treasonable sort of thing--Jasper is Jasper, one of the family, and we must welcome him as such--but between ourselves, just for no one else to hear in all the wide world, I do hope also that our dear little Hilda will come here by herself.”
Judy threw her thin arms round Aunt Marjorie's neck and gave her a silent hug.
”I'll never breathe what you said,” she whispered back in her emphatic voice.
Babs slept peacefully in her cot at the other end of the room. The white and blue violets lay in a tiny bowl on the little table by Judy's bed.
The rumble of wheels was heard in the avenue. Aunt Marjorie started to her feet, and the color flew from Judy's face.
”It cannot be Hilda yet,” exclaimed the aunt. ”No, of course, it is the doctor. He will say that you are better to-night, Judy.”
The medical man entered the room, felt the pulse of his little patient, looked into her eyes, and gave utterance to a few cheerful words.
”The child is much better, isn't she?” asked Aunt Marjorie, following him out of the room.
”Hum! I am not so sure; her pulse is weak and quick, and for some reason she is extremely excited. What is she sitting up in bed for? she ought to have been in the land of dreams a long time ago.”
”Don't you know, Dr. Harvey; didn't we tell you, my niece, Mrs.
Quentyns, is expected to-night? and Judy is sitting up to see her.”
”Suspense is very bad for my little patient. What time is Mrs. Quentyns expected to arrive?”
”About ten. Judy is especially attached to her sister, and if I had insisted on her trying to go to sleep, she would have tossed about and worked herself into a fever.”
”She is very nearly in one now, and I don't particularly like the look of excitement in her eyes. I hope Mrs. Quentyns will be punctual. As soon as ever she comes, the child must settle to sleep. Give her a dose of that bromide mixture immediately after. I'll come and see her the first thing in the morning.”
CHAPTER XI.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
But she is far away Now; nor the hours of night, grown h.o.a.r, Bring, yet to me, long gazing, from the door, The wind-stirred robe of roseate gray, And rose-cream of the hour that leads the day, When we shall meet once more.