'Dear Maude,' she said, as she took the hot hands in hers and kissed
them tenderly.
Then she sat down beside her, and smoothed her hair, and told her how
lovely she looked in her pretty rose-colored wrapper, and how sorry
every one was for her, and that both she and Nina would have been there
every day, only they knew they could not see her. Then, as the great
black eyes fixed themselves steadily upon her, with a look of enquiry in
them, she set her teeth hard, and began:
'I don't think anyone has been more sorry than Harold. Why, for the
first few days after you were taken so ill he just walked the floor all
the time he was in the house, and when grandma asked what ailed him, he
said, "I am thinking of Maude, and am afraid my call upon her was the
cause of the attack."'
'N--n--,' Maude began, but checked herself in time, and taking up her
slate, wrote, 'Tell him it was not his call. I am glad he came.'
'Yes I will,' Jerrie replied, scarcely able to keep back her tears, when
she saw how cramped and irregular the handwriting was, so unlike
Maude's, and realized more and more how weak and sick was the little
girl whose eyes followed her everywhere and always grew brighter and
softer when she was talking to her of Harold.
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