The Story of Jessie | Page 3

so happy." Then, springing to her feet, "I am well now! this is the medicine I wanted. Father, when do you think she will come? I must get the place all nice and tidy, and a room ready for her, in good time too, and it seems to me I'd best set to work at once or I shall never get a half done!"
Thomas did not say much, his heart was too full for speech, but the inexpressible relief he felt showed in his face and his blue eyes. "I'm glad you takes it like that, mother," he said simply, "I was afraid."
"Afraid! afraid of what? That I shouldn't want her!"
But at that moment the kettle boiled over with a great hiss, and brought them back to everyday affairs again.
"Well, any way," said Thomas, with a happy smile on his pleasant old face, "we can allow ourselves time for a bit of breakfast, or maybe when she does come we shall be past speaking a word to show her she's welcome," and while both of them laughed over his little joke, he made the long-delayed cup of tea, and, though both were too excited to eat, they sat down together to their breakfast.
CHAPTER II.
JESSIE ARRIVES.
Unwell though she had been, Mrs. Dawson would not let her husband do a single thing indoors to help her in preparation for the little newcomer.
"No. Men is only in the way," she said decidedly. "I shall get on twice as fast if you leave me the place to myself." So, knowing that she meant what she said, Thomas went out and set to work in the garden, for, of course, that must be made trim, too, for the little five-year-old grandchild. He forked over the earth in all the beds, tied up to a stick every daffodil that did not stand perfectly upright by itself, trimmed the sweetbriar hedge, and swept the paths.
"If I'd got the time," he called in to Patience, "I would give the gate a coat of paint."
"I wish you could," she called back, "and the front door, too, it'd be the better for it. To a stranger, I dare say it'll look shabby."
Evidently they expected the new-comer to be a very critical little person.
"I can whitewash the back porch," thought Thomas, "and I'll do it without saying anything to mother. It will be a bit of a surprise to her."
But while he was putting on the last brushful or two, a thought came to him which sent him hurrying into the house in quite a flurry.
"Mother!" he called up the stairs, "mother! we don't know when she's coming, Lizzie didn't say--and what's to prevent her coming to-day?"
Patience dropped her scrubbing-brush and sat down on the top stair, overcome with excitement and surprise. "To-day! this very day! Oh dear! oh dear! how careless of Lizzie not to tell us! The poor child might come at any time, and nobody be there to meet her, and we can't write and ask, for she didn't give us any address to write to. Lizzie did use to have some sense before she took up with that Harry Lang, but now--"
Patience lapsed into silence because she could not find words which would sufficiently express her feelings. She was tired and irritable too, and she never could endure uncertainty.
Thomas had been standing by all this while, thinking deeply. "Well," he said at last, "it's my belief she'd send her off as soon as she could after she'd wrote the letter, for if Lizzie had a hard thing to do, she was one as couldn't stop to think much about it, or she'd never do it at all. She's put London on the top of her letter, and the London train comes in at four-fifteen, and I'm thinking I'd better go and meet it, any way, and then, if the child don't come by it, I can tell Station-Master I'm expecting my little grandchild, but I don't know exactly when, and when she do come, will he keep her safe if I ain't there in time. I can't think of nothing better than that."
Patience rose briskly, with a look of relief on her face. There was something very wonderful in the thought that before another night she might be holding her own little grandchild in her arms. "What a head-piece you have got, father!" she cried admiringly. "Well, I mustn't stay here talking, or I shan't be ready. If I'd got the time I'd have whitened the ceiling and put a clean pretty paper on the walls of the little room."
"Little room!--are--are you giving her--Lizzie's room?" There was a note of shock or dismay in Thomas's voice.
"Yes," said Patience shortly. "The child must have a room, of course, and there isn't any other!" she answered shortly, because it