Part 32 (1/2)

”Did I say that? I must have been out of my head.”

”Thee'll see that all was ordered for the best, and be content when thee gets strong. People are often better every way after a good fit of sickness. I believe the Good Physician will give His healing touch to thy soul as well as thy body. Ah, here is Zillah. Come in, little girl.

Richard wishes to see thee.”

Bearing a bowl in both hands, she entered hesitatingly.

”Why, Zillah, you waiting on me, too! It's all like a fairy tale, and I'm transformed into a great prince, and am waited on right royally.

I'm going to drink that broth to your health, as if you were a great lady. It will do me more good than all the drugs of all the doctors, just because you are such a good little fairy, and have bewitched it.”

The child dimpled all over with pleasure as she came and stood by my side.

”Oh, I'm so glad thee's getting well!” she cried. ”Thee talks queer, but not so queer as thee did before. Thee--”

A warning gesture from her mother checked her, and she looked a little frightened.

”That will do, Zillah. After Richard has taken this I'm not going to let him talk for a long time.”

”Do you want to make me all well, Zillah?” I asked, smiling into her troubled and sympathetic face.

She nodded eagerly and most emphatically.

”Then climb on a chair and give me a kiss.”

After a quick, questioning look at her mother, she complied, laughing.

”Ah, that puts life into me,” I said. ”You can tell them all that you did me more good than the doctor. I'll go with you to see the robins soon.”

”I've got something else for thee downstairs,” she whispered, ”something that Emily Warren gathered for thee,” and she was gone in a flash.

A moment later she stood in the doorway, announced in advance by the perfume of an exquisite cl.u.s.ter of rosebuds arranged in a dainty vase entwined and half hidden with myrtle.

”Put the vase on the table by Richard, and then thee mustn't come any more.”

”Thee surely are from the Garden of Eden,” I exclaimed. ”These and your kiss, Zillah, will make me well. Tell Miss Warren that I am going to thank her myself. Good-by now,” and she flitted out of the room, bright with the unalloyed happiness of a child.

”Dear me,” said Mrs. Yocomb, ”thee must indeed get strong fast, for I do have such a time keeping the young people out of thy room. Reuben asks a dozen times a day if he can see thee, and father's nearly as bad. No more shall see thee to-day, I promise thee. Now thee must rest till to-morrow.”

I was well content, for the roses brought a presence very near. In their fragrance, their beauty, their dewy freshness, their superiority to other flowers, they seemed the emblem of the maiden who had made harmony in the garden when Nature was at her best. The scene, as we had stood there together, grew so vivid that I saw her again almost in reality, her face glowing with the undisguised, irrepressible pleasure that had been caused by my unexpected tribute to the absolute truthfulness of her character. Again I heard her piquant laugh; then her sweet, vibratory voice as she sang hymns that awakened other than religious emotions, I fear. By an odd freak of fancy the flowers seemed an embodied strain from Chopin's nocturne that she had played, and the different shades of color the rising and falling of the melody.

”What do they mean?” I murmured to myself. ”At any rate I see no York and Lancaster buds among them.”

”Is thee so very fond of roses that thee gazes so long and intently at them?” Mrs. Yocomb quietly asked.

I started, and I had still sufficient blood to crimson my pallid face.

Turning away I said, ”They recalled a scene in the garden where they grew. It seemed to me that Miss Warren had grown there too, she was so like them; and that this impression should have been made by a girl bred in the city struck me as rather strange.”

”Thy impression was correct--she's genuine,” Mrs. Yocomb replied gravely, and her eyes rested on me in a questioning and sympathetic way that I understood better as I thought it over afterward.