Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/290

280 approach. But for Reba's great need of being taken care of, her aunts and Cousin Syringa would never have been given the opportunity of love-begetting service. This was especially significant with the inarticulate Augusta, clumsy and awkward in the use of every form of expression except service. There were moments during the anxious watching-time of Reba's long sickness when the tenderness in Augusta Morgan's heart amounted almost to pain. For early in the siege, Reba showed a preference for the older woman's services. Time and again she would push aside Aunt Emma's helping hand, likewise Cousin Syringa's, whispering weakly, "Not you—not you."

"It's Augusta she wants," they soon comprehended. They were right. It was the tall, taut woman with the skillful hands and masterful voice whom Reba desired. She was unaware of the actual identity of the personality that acted upon her, like a steadying potion of medicine, but she would moan and moan for Augusta Morgan for hours, as for a drug, never calling her name but restless and unsatisfied, till she came.

"Pshaw! What nonsense!" Augusta would retort to Eunice or Syringa, sent to fetch her, but she never failed to respond to the summons. She would hurry to Reba's bedside whatever the time of day or night; and when the sick girl's searching eyes rested upon her satisfied and her voice implored, "Don't leave me again, please," Augusta Morgan was obliged to clench her teeth together tight to keep her under jaw from jerking with emotion. Why, she couldn't love a child of her own more than she loved Reba, she believed. She had done all a mother could for Reba, except bear her.