Tell me frankly, would you like me to stay?"
"Frankly I would rather you would not," said Maria, yet in so cordial a
tone that no offence could be gathered from it in any way.
So the door opened and closed again and Maria began the rather laborious
task of coaxing the old man to bed. When once there, the medicine given,
and the soup taken, which she could not but notice that he swallowed
greedily, she seated herself before the fire, resolving that, if Amos
did not feel better by nine o'clock, she would have Barney come over for
the night, as of course she must return to be near the Infant.
As she sat there she pictured for the hundredth time how she would
invest her little capital and rearrange her life, if Amos consented to
sell her the farm,--how best to restore the home without elaborating the
care of it, and take one or two people to live with her who had been ill
or needed rest in cheerful surroundings. Not always the same two, for
that is paralyzing after a time when the freshness of energetic
influence wears off; but her experience among her friends told her that
in a city's social life there was an endless supply of overwrought
nerves and bodies.
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