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I sent the old black woman home and to bed, and may have sat an hour more, when she came back to tell us, that one of the children was very wakeful and feverish. Senda went to see into the matter for us, and the old woman took her place in the little parlor. Mrs. Smith was with Mrs. Fontenette. Fontenette slept.
And indeed it would be truer to say of my two friends' skies, that they had clouds, but the clouds were silvered through with happy reassurances. Jealousy, we are told, once set on fire, burns without fuel; but I must think that that is oftenest, if not always, the jealousy of a selfish love. Or, rather let me quote Senda, as she spoke the only other time she ever touched upon the subject with us.
She spoke something low, stroking her downy fan and blushing with that damsel sweetness of which her husband was so openly fond. "O no, I sank you!" answered Senda, in an undulating voice. "I sank you v'ey much, but I cannot take se time to come to yo' house, and I cannot let you take se trouble too come too mine.
Whereat, remembering how she had formerly glozed and gilded the entomologist's unthrift, I remarked, one-fourth in play, three-fourths in earnest, "A good plain business man isn't the least noble work of God, after all." "No," said Senda, without looking up; and, after a long, meditative breath, she added, very slowly, "Se koot Kott makes not all men for se same high calling.
In the street-car and afterward for a full hour at her house, Senda was very silent, only saying now a little and then a little more. "He iss all right! He vill sure come. Many times he been avay se whole night. Sat is se first time I am eveh afraid; is sat se vay when commencing to grow old? Yes, I sink sat is se reason."
It's this: Yet though I have sinned, Lord, all others above, Though feeble my prayers, Lord; my tears all unseen; I'll trust in thy love, Lord; I'll trust in thy love O I'll trust in thy love like Mary Mahgaleen." An exalted smile lighted her face as she sunk deeper into the pillows. She tried to speak again, but her voice failed. I bent my ear and she whispered "Senda."
When the Baron spoke her eyes opened with a look, first eager and then distressful, but closed again. We put the old black woman temporarily into her room and Mrs. Smith hurried to our other neighbors, whence she was to despatch one of their servants to bid Senda come to us at once. But "No battle" have I already used the proverb? She gave the message to the servant, but it never reached Senda.
Yet he grew quiet, and was as good as silent, when Senda, long before I began to look for her, stood unbonneted at my side in a soft glow of physical animation, her anxiety all hidden and with a pink spot on each cheek. I was startled. Had I slept or had she somehow ridden? "Are the street-cars running already?" I asked. "No," she murmured, producing a vial and looking for a glass.
Senda had sent word that the child had only an indigestion a thing serious enough in such a case and though still slightly feverish was now asleep, but restless. "Sih? Yass, sir awnressless dass 'zac'ly what I say!" Wherefore Senda would either remain in the nursery or return to us, as we should elect. "O no, sih, she no need to come back right now, anyhow; yass, sih, dass what de Mis' say, too."
On a certain day of All Saints, the fourth after the scourge, Senda sat at tea with us. Our mood was chastened, but peaceful. We had come from visiting at the sunset hour the cemetery where in the morning the two women and our old nurse had decked the tombs of our dead with flowers.
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