The Children of the Top Floor Part 12

"I love Winifred very much," said Jack slowly, "but then you're my own sister, and of course a person couldn't love another person as much as his own sister. Oh, Betty, you didn't really think I could, did you?"

Jack was beginning to look troubled, and Betty, very much ashamed of herself, hastened to rea.s.sure him.

"No, no, of course I didn't, not really, you know," she said, giving her brother a hearty kiss. "I was silly, that's all, but it's all right now.

Isn't it lovely having mother so much better? Miss Clark says she can begin to sit up in a few days, and such nice things have happened.

Nearly all mother's pupils have written kind notes, and most of them have sent checks paying up to the end of the term. I don't think mother wanted to take the checks at first, but Mrs. Hamilton talked to her, and she says she's going to try not to mind so much about accepting favors any more. I think there is only just one other thing in the world that could make me happier than I am to-day."

"What's that?" Jack inquired.

"To have you able to walk," said Betty softly. She turned her head away as she spoke, so that her brother should not see the expression in her eyes.

Jack gave a little start, and drew a long, deep breath.

"But, Betty," he said almost in a whisper, "that's something that couldn't ever possibly happen, you know. Oh, Betty, dear, please don't talk about it, because you see it's impossible."

Suddenly Betty laid her face down beside her brother's on the pillow, with a sob.

"Very, very wonderful things do happen sometimes," she whispered, "things that are almost as wonderful as fairy stories. If you ever could be made to walk, Jack, wouldn't you be the very happiest boy in the whole world?"

"Of course I should," said Jack with decision, "if it only could happen, but then you know, it couldn't."

Betty said no more, but hugged Jack tight, and kissed him a great many times, and then she went away to the kitchen to help Miss Clark get dinner.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DOCTOR'S VERDICT

Miss Clark's prediction proved correct, and in a few days Mrs. Randall was able to sit up, and to be helped into the sunny little parlor, where she sat by Jack's sofa, looking happier and more at rest than the children had ever seen her look before. After that she improved so rapidly that even Dr. Bell was surprised, and declared he had never seen a woman with a finer const.i.tution. At the end of another week Miss Clark went away to another case, and Mrs. Flynn, the good-natured Irishwoman who did the Randalls' washing, was engaged to come in by the day. So the bright spring days came and went, and when the sun was brightest and the air warmest, Jack's pale face would often look a little wistful, but nothing more was said about drives in the park, and Betty, still waiting patiently for leave to reveal her secret, began to wonder if after all Mrs. Hamilton had been mistaken, or Dr. Bell had changed his mind.

One Sat.u.r.day morning in May, Winifred appeared shortly after breakfast, looking pleased and excited, and bringing an invitation for Betty.

"It's from Lulu Bell," she explained, when Betty, quite thrilled at the prospect, had brought the visitor into the parlor to tell the news to her mother and Jack. "Lulu asked Gertie Rossiter and me to lunch with her and go to the circus to-day, but Gertie has the measles, so Lulu telephoned, and asked me to bring Betty instead. Mother says she hopes you'll let Betty go, Mrs. Randall, because she's sure Mrs. Bell would like to have her very much."

Mrs. Randall looked pleased.

"I am sure Betty would enjoy it," she said; "you would like to go, wouldn't you, dear?"

Betty hesitated, and glanced a little uneasily at Jack.

"I should like it," she said. "I've never been to the circus and it must be lovely, but--but----"

"Oh, Betty, you must go!" cried Jack eagerly. "It'll be so nice, and you can tell me all about it when you come home."

The time had been, and not so long before either, when Mrs. Randall would have been inclined to regard this invitation as an attempt at patronage, but she had been learning more than one lesson in these days of her convalescence, and Mrs. Hamilton's kindly advice was beginning to bear fruit.

"Lulu says her mother doesn't want us to wear anything especially nice,"

Winifred went on, "because we shall go around to see the animals before the circus begins, and it may be dusty. I've got a lovely new book out of the library; it's called 'Dorothy Dainty,' and I'm going to bring it up for Jack to read this afternoon. I know he'll like it."

Matters being thus happily arranged, Winifred hurried away to telephone her friend that Betty would be delighted to accept the invitation, and Betty made herself very useful, helping Mrs. Flynn with the Sat.u.r.day cleaning, feeling all the time as if she were about to enter upon a new and very interesting experience.

"You're sure you don't mind, Jack," she said, stooping to kiss him at the last moment before going downstairs to join Winifred.

"Not a bit," said Jack heartily. "I hope you'll have a lovely time, and it'll be such fun to hear all about it."

"You're not a single mite jealous, are you?" said Betty, with a sudden recollection of her own feelings on another occasion.

"No, of course not. What does it feel like to be jealous?"

"Well, you know, I never went away and left you for a whole afternoon, just to have fun before, and I'm going to have a good time, and you're not. You wouldn't like it if you were jealous."

"But I am going to have a nice time," said Jack, looking rather puzzled; "I've got that nice book Winifred brought, and mother's going to play for me. I wonder what being jealous really does feel like."

"It doesn't feel nice," said Betty, blushing, "but I don't believe you'll ever know anything about it, you're too dear."

It was about twelve o'clock when the two little girls, accompanied by Mrs. Hamilton, left the apartment house, and started on their walk across the park, to the Bells' home on Madison Avenue. It was a beautiful day, and the park was full of children, all making the most of their Sat.u.r.day holiday. They met several May parties, and Betty told them how her mother had once read them Tennyson's "May Queen," and how Jack had been so much interested in the poem that he had learned it by heart.

"Jack is really a very clever boy," said Winifred admiringly. "I don't like boys very much generally, they're so rough, but I respect Jack very much indeed."

"There isn't any other boy in the world like him," said Betty, with conviction. "Mrs. Hamilton," she added rather shyly, "do you suppose Dr.

Bell has forgotten Jack, now that he doesn't come to see mother any more?"

"I am very sure he has not," said Mrs. Hamilton decidedly.

Betty said no more on the subject, but her heart beat high with renewed hope, and during the rest of the walk she felt as if she were treading upon air.

Betty could not help feeling a little uncomfortable when she first caught sight of the handsome house where Winifred's friends lived. She had met Lulu only once, and although she looked upon the doctor as one of her best friends, she did not know any other members of the family, and the thought of being presented to entire strangers was a rather embarra.s.sing one. Mrs. Hamilton, having another engagement, left them at the foot of the steps. Winifred rang the bell, and when the door was opened by the boy in bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, she walked in with the air of a person very much at home. Betty followed more slowly, wondering rather uncomfortably what people who lived in such a grand-looking house would think of her faded brown dress and last year's straw hat. But all such speculations were speedily forgotten in the kind cordiality of the greeting she received. Lulu was a charming little hostess, and her mother and her blind aunt both greeted the little stranger so kindly, that they soon succeeded in making her feel almost as much at home as Winifred herself.

At luncheon the ladies asked questions about Jack, and quite won Betty's heart by telling her of the many kind things the doctor had said about her little brother. Lulu had a great deal to say about the pretty seaside cottage her father had just hired for the summer.

"You must come and make us a long visit, Winifred," she said decidedly, but Winifred shook her head.

"I can't leave mother," she said, with equal decision on her part. "It's so perfectly beautiful to have her, I can't ever go away from her."

"There is a good hotel very near us," said Mrs. Bell kindly. "Perhaps your father and mother will come there to board for a while."

But Winifred still looked doubtful. She had an idea that money was not very plentiful with her family just then, and she had heard her mother say that a couple of weeks in the mountains, while father had his vacation, would probably be all they could afford that summer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: What a delightful afternoon that was!--_Page 111._]

As soon as they rose from the luncheon table Mrs. Bell and the three little girls started for the circus.

What a delightful afternoon that was! Even Betty's wildest antic.i.p.ations had scarcely prepared her for the blissful reality. She enjoyed every moment, and every incident, from the clown who made her laugh till she cried, to the "Battle of Santiago," which made her shiver and cling tightly to Winifred's hand.

"It's been the loveliest afternoon I ever knew," she said gratefully to Mrs. Bell, when it was all over, and the little girls were saying good-bye at the door of the apartment house. "It was so kind of you to take me, and I shall have lots and lots to tell Jack."