Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/91

Rh her. "I can travel back to New York in a few minutes, I am sure. Can't I, doctor?"

The doctor was puzzled.

"I understood from your grandfather that you were to live here with him."

Rebecca said nothing, but slowly turned her eyes, looking in turn at each person standing around her bed. The countenances of the aunts registered coldness and dislike; the young uncle, who was in the background, showed a kind of sullen rage; Aunt Testy was wiping the tears from her kindly fat face.

Dr. Price tried to appear impersonal, realizing that he had put his foot in a family affair, but his pleasant eyes gave back a sympathetic gleam as his little patient looked at him. Turning to Philip Bolling, Rebecca read trust and encouragement in his face. He gave her a nod and a smile. Still sitting bolt upright in the great four-posted bed, the girl now bent a level gaze on her grandfather, who was leaning forward as though hungrily waiting for her inspection of the other persons in the room to be finished and for his time to come. The Major met her look squarely and for a few seconds young brown eyes looked into old blue ones. What brown eyes saw in blue and what blue eyes saw in brown no one in the room could divine, but