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The weather-beaten roofs and glimpses of dusty tree-tops that formed the view reminded her of the sorrowful days she had passed in Mrs Lee's attic-nursery, and a feeling very like the old miserable home-sickness of that time made her close her eyes and drop her face upon her hands. Poor Christie!
'Mother, said Flossy, who was rather afraid of her mother, and did not often put a direct question to her, 'if the baby stays up in the old, old attic-nursery, and if Pete and me and Snip can play with it and it never cries, then Mrs Potts and Mr Martin needn't know nothing about it, need they, mother?
So Christie reigned alone in the attic-nursery, and controlled and amused the children, and mended, and managed, and looked cheerful through it all, in a way that excited the admiration and astonishment of Mrs Greenly, and the thankful gratitude of Mrs Lee. How she got through it all she hardly knew. On the days when the baby was her exclusive care, it was bad enough.
He did not leave her till he saw her resting on the sofa in her own room; and Christie did not see her again till the house had become quiet for the night. Mrs Greenly had paid one brief visit to the sick-room, and then, weary with the exertions of the week, betook herself to the attic-nursery to rest.
So earnest was she in all this that she had no time to think of her disappointment till the boys were down-stairs at breakfast with their mother. Then little Harry seemed feverish and fretful and "ill to do with," as Mrs Greenly, who visited the attic-nursery with the baby in her arms, declared. Christie strove to soothe her fretful pet, and took him in her arms to carry him down-stairs.
She was not the least like the bright little Dickory who used to laugh and show her dimples in the old attic-nursery at home. 'Look here, said Peter, 'what are we to do? 'T will be night soon, and we haven't found no hiding-place for Dickory, and no one will take us in. 'Baby is not at all well, either, said Flossy; 'her head is quite hot, like fire, when I touch it.
"And don't tell them I was so very much disappointed about it," she said, trying to smile, when Annie rose to go. "They must be all the more glad to see me when I come. I couldna go, Annie. Now, do you really think I could?" They were up in the attic-nursery. Christie sat with the baby in her lap, while little Harry hung about her, begging to be taken up.
At any rate, I'm going to call for the doctor this afternoon, and if it should prove that he has taken the fever, why, I must stay for a week, and you have the prospect of a longer confinement in the attic-nursery." It was too true. Little Harry was very ill much worse than his sister had been at first.
And during these days she began to feel a strange yearning tenderness for the poor young mother, scarcely less helpless and in need of care than they. It had come to be quite the regular thing now for Mrs Greenly to take an hour's rest in the attic-nursery when the children had fallen asleep, while Christie took her place in Mrs Lee's room.
So Christie and the other children were banished to the attic-nursery again. She said not another word about going home, except to her sister. "Tell Effie I couldna get away. It wouldna be right to leave; would it, Annie? I will try and not be very unhappy about it." But the tears that rolled down her cheeks told how bitter the disappointment was to her.
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