Those letters grow more and more discouraging, and the kind admonitions
of your mother grow more earnest, as if (though the thought does not
come to you until years afterward) she was preparing herself to fasten
upon you that surplus of affection which she fears may soon be withdrawn
forever from the sick child.
It is on a frosty, bleak evening, when you are playing with Nat, that
the letter reaches you which says Charlie is growing worse, and that you
must come to your home. It makes a dreamy night for you--fancying how
Charlie will look, and if sickness has altered him much, and if he will
not be well by Christmas. From this you fall away in your reverie to the
odd old house and its secret cupboards, and your aunt's queer caps; then
come up those black eyes of "your attached Jenny," and you think it a
pity that she is six month's older than you; and again--as you recall
one of her sighs--you think that six months are not much after all!
You bid her good-bye, with a little sentiment swelling in your throat,
and are mortally afraid Nat will see your lip tremble. Of course you
promise to write, and squeeze her hand with an honesty you do not think
of doubting--for weeks.
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