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To which Alfy replied from her own room: "No, Molly Breckenridge, don't be a goose. We'd have eaten him up, course. We'd have had bear steak for breakfast Some say it's good. Don't s'pose with all them men around they'd have let it live very long? No, indeedy. But Matty did it real cute, after all, didn't he? Must ha' been terrible hot, trampin' around under all that skin.
"Lie still, child, till I come; say your prayers and wait for father, said the man, as he parted the leaves for a last glance at the small, frightened face looking up at him. "'Come soon, whispered Matty, and tried to smile bravely, as a stout settler's girl should. "Mr. Kilburn went away, and was taken prisoner in the fight, carried off, and for years no one knew whether he was alive or dead.
"Helen!" and the doctor's voice was very stern, for time had not erased from his heart all love for the blue-eyed Matty, the gentle mother of the offending Maude, and more than all, the mother of his boy "Helen, that woman was my wife, and you must not speak disrespectfully of her."
"He surely don't disgrace himself by too much show of affection," agreed Chick-chick. "You musn't think it's because it's me, though. There's on'y one person Matty really loves. He's real smart, Matty is. You noticed he spoke so the men couldn't hear him." Black Bob had Mr. Spencer's eggs all ready. "These is for the ge'mman as told the stories last night," he announced.
She had heroically refrained from crying out, or making any complaint, lest Johnny should be moved to espouse her cause, and avenge it on Matty; but it had gone to her heart, and to Allie's as well, that, after such forbearance, neither Bessie nor I should have noticed her plight.
"But, surely," resumed Matty, with a slightly indignant look and tone, "surely you don't mean to tell me that there is no remedy for the miserable condition of the poor, and that the rich must just sigh over it, or shut their eyes to it, while they continue to revel in luxury?" "How you fly to extremes, sister!" said Tom, with a laugh, as he neatly cut the top off a fourth egg.
For a blighted invalid Matty did not look pale, and the doctor, who quickly discovered that there was no broken heart in the case, ordered his régime with a certain dry sense of humor, anything but comforting to the poor little victim. "Miss Matty requires rest," he said. "Absolute rest. And freedom from all undue excitement.
And the first time I saw him do that, taking out a handful extra for himself, was one morning when I hadn't any money to buy; but he stopped in, and I staid out, 'cause it was too kind of tantalizing to go in and smell 'em all freshly roasted, and not get any; and I was looking in between the posies and plants in the shop, and when Matty was filling up her measure for him only the two-center one I saw him do that mean trick; on a girl, too, and she a hunchback!
Miss Matty assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came upstairs; but, as she had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather flurried by the unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to see her return with one cap on the top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and looked at us, with bland satisfaction.
The thought of death always had a sobering effect upon her it filled her with longing, yet dread. The beautiful young mother, whose picture hung in the best room, and whose eyes followed her in every direction, was dead. Matty had told her many times just how her mother had gone, and how often the gentle spirit had returned to hover over the beloved young daughter.
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