Richie, fussing and proud
and a little tremulous, would have touched her, if she had noticed
him. But she did not notice him,--the child absorbed her. She could
not leave him. Before she knew it she found herself taking off her
bonnet and saying she would stay to tea.
"David," said Dr. Lavendar, "I've got a bone in my leg; so you run and
get me a clean pocket-handkerchief."
"Can I go up-stairs like a crocodile?" said David.
"Certainly, if it affords you the slightest personal satisfaction,"
Dr. Lavendar told him; and while the little boy crawled laboriously on
his stomach all the way up-stairs, Dr. Lavendar talked about him. He
said he thought the child had been homesick just at first; he had
missed his sister Janey. "He told me 'Janey' gave him 'forty kisses'
every night," said Dr. Lavendar; "I thought that told a story--" At
that moment the crocodile, holding a handkerchief between his teeth,
came rapidly, head foremost, down-stairs. Dr. Lavendar raised a
cautioning hand;--"Mustn't talk about him, now!"
There was a quality in that evening that was new to Helena; it was
dull, of course;--how very dull Lloyd would have found it! A childlike
old man asking questions with serious simplicity of a little boy who
was full of his own important interests and anxieties;--the feeding of
Danny, and the regretful wonder that in heaven, the little dog would
not be "let in.
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