Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/39

Rh with all our dolls in a row, and tiny home-made hymn-books in their laps.

When a butterfly detached the leader of the choir, and Bettina went in chase to the other side of the garden, my mother would say anxiously: "Someone must go down and bring Bettina back." I could not bear to see Loring, or Melanie, doing anything for my mother. I think they humoured me, and that Melanie performed her service chiefly by stealth. I know I felt it to be all my doing when the invalid was able to come downstairs.

She sat very near the fire though the day was hot. When she held up her hand to shade her eyes, her hand was different.

Not only thin. Different.

Bettina and I were sorry she would never see the one or two kind people who "called to inquire."

We had come early to know that her refusal to take any part in such meagre "life" as the scattered community offered was indeed founded upon "indisposition," as we had heard; but an indisposition deeper than her malady.