Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/178

Rh to-morrow, and so I came away. He'll be all right in a month or so, an' then we'll go an' keep house. You see it ain't likely I could help him any by goin' there an' gettin' it myself."

"Pomona," said Euphemia, "this is dreadful. You ought to go and take a bridal tour, and get him rid of those fearful chills."

"I never thought of that," said Pomona, her face lighting up wonderfully.

Now that Euphemia had fallen upon this happy idea, she never dropped it until she had made all the necessary plans, and had put them into execution. In the course of a week she had engaged another servant, and had started Pomona and her husband off on a bridal-tour, stipulating nothing but that they should take plenty of quinine in their trunk.

It was about three weeks after this, and Euphemia and I were sitting on our front steps—I had come home early, and we had been potting some of the tenderest plants—when Pomona walked in at the gate. She looked well, and had on a very bright new dress. Euphemia noticed this the moment she came in. We welcomed her warmly, for we felt a great interest in this girl, who had grown up in our family, and under our care.

"Have you had your bridal trip?" asked Euphemia. "Oh, yes!" said Pomona. "It's all over an' done with, an' we're settled in our house."

"Well, sit right down here on the steps and tell us all about it," said Euphemia, in a glow of delightful expectancy, and Pomona, nothing loath, sat down and told her tale.

"You see," said she, untying her bonnet-strings, to give an easier movement to her chin, "we didn't