Geraldine was in the sitting-room, writing a Latin exercise, with a
great pucker in her forehead whenever Angela looked up from her
wooden bricks to speak to her. And though the sharp little pinched
face was all one beam of joy as the visitor came in, Sister Constance
saw at once that the child's health had deteriorated in these last
months. She sat down, and with Angela on her lap, questioned
anxiously. Cherry had no complaints--she always was like this in the
spring. How was her foot? As usual, a falter. Was it _really_? Well,
yes, she thought so. And then, as the motherly eyes looked into hers,
there came a burst of the ready tears; and 'Oh, _please_ don't talk
about it--_please_ don't ask.'
'I know what you are afraid of,' said Sister Constance, remembering
her horror of the Bexley medical attendant, 'but is it right to
conceal this, my dear child?'
'I don't think I do,' said Cherry pitifully. 'You know Sibby _does_
it every night, and it only aches a little more now. And if they did
find it out, then they would have _him_, and there would be a
doctor's bill, and, oh! that would be dreadful!'
Sister Constance saw that the question of right or wrong would be
infinitely too much for Geraldine, and drew off her mind from it to
tell of the good accounts of Robina from Catsacre, and Clement from
Whittingtonia; but when presently Wilmet was so far free as to come
in with _only_ the boy-baby in her arms, and take the guest up to
take off her bonnet, it was the time for entering on the subject.
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