"If you don't, I'll never forgive you. I'm a very cruel man, and that is the only way to insure good treatment for your mother. You'd better, Sally." And the doctor wagged his head in a threatening manner.

Sally laughed. "It'll be your own fault if you get too many letters.

But you needn't answer them, if you don't have time."

"We'll see. We'll see. I guess I shall manage to find a few minutes, now and then, to write to Miss Sally Ladue."

CHAPTER XIII

It was September before Sally was ready to go to Whitby. Indeed, it cannot be said that she was ready then, or that she ever would have been ready, if her wishes only had been involved. But by the middle of September she had done all the things that she had to do, her belongings and Charlie's were packed in two small trunks, and there did not seem to be any excuse for delaying her departure longer.

She had gone, with Doctor Galen, one memorable day, to see the sanitarium. He, I suppose, had thought that perhaps Sally would feel better about going if she saw for herself just the way in which her mother would be taken care of. So he took her all over the building, himself acting as her guide, and she saw it all. She did feel better.

When she had seen the whole thing and had absorbed as much as the doctor thought was good for her, they went into town again and had lunch with Mrs. Galen. There weren't any children and there never had been. So much the worse for the doctor and for Mrs. Galen. They had missed the best thing in life, and they knew that they had and regretted it. After lunch, the doctor went home with Sally. She thought, with some wonder at it, that the doctor could not have had much to do that day, for he had given the whole of it to her. There were many of his patients who thought otherwise--a whole office full of them; and they waited in vain for the doctor.

A few days later Sally had bidden a last mournful farewell to all her favorite haunts. She had been devoting her spare time for a week to that melancholy but pleasant duty. The little lizard would never more sit high in the branches of the coal trees and look out over the prospect of treetops and swamp. Never again would the gynesaurus feed on stove coal plucked, ripe, from the branches whereon it grew. Sally laughed, in spite of her melancholy, as this thought pa.s.sed through her mind; and the gynesaurus stopped eating coal and incontinently slid and scrambled down the tree, landing on the ground with a thump which was more like that made by a little girl than that a lizard would make. And she ran into the house in rather a cheerful frame of mind. It was almost time for the man to come for their trunks.

Fox met her as she came in. "It's a good chance to say good-bye to your mother, Sally. She's wandering about in her room."

All of Sally's cheerfulness vanished at that. She knew just how she should find her mother: aimlessly wandering from one part of the room to another, intending, always, to do something, and always forgetting what it was she intended to do. But Sally found Charlie and, together, they went to their mother.

It was the same sweet, gentle voice that called to them to come in. It was the same sweet, gentle woman who greeted them. But in her dull eyes there was scarcely recognition. To Sally it was as though a thick veil hung always before her mother, through which she could neither see clearly nor be seen. Her processes of mind were as vague and as crude as those of a baby. If she was better than she had been, how very ill she must have been!

Mrs. Ladue did not realize what Sally's good-bye meant. She was utterly incapable of taking in the changes which were before Sally or before herself. She returned Sally's good-bye impa.s.sively, as though Sally were going no farther than downstairs; and when Charlie, impatient and a little frightened, fretted and pulled at Sally's hand, Mrs. Ladue did not seem to mind. It was as if Charlie were some strange child, in whom she had no interest. Poor lady!

"Why don't you take him away?" she asked. "He wants to go."

So Sally, choking with tenderness, took him away. She cried a little on Fox's shoulder.

"It seems to me that I can't bear it, Fox," she sobbed. "To see mother so--is she really better?"

"You know she is, Sally."

"Yes, I s'pose I do." Sally's sobs gradually ceased. "But it's terribly slow. She'll have forgotten us by the time she gets well."

"No fear, Sally," Fox replied, with a gentle smile. "No fear of that.

Come, here's the man for our things."

Fox was going with them. Sally dried her eyes while he went to see about the trunks.

As they walked out at the gate, Fox glanced at Sally. Her lips were tightly shut and she did not look back once, but she kept her gaze firmly fixed ahead, as if she were afraid of being turned into a pillar of salt. n.o.body knew how much determination it took for her to do so. She would have liked to cry again and kiss every tree in the place. But she wouldn't cry again. She just would not.

Henrietta met them before they had gone far, and rattled on as though she had been talking on a wager. Sally couldn't talk. And Henrietta went to the station with them, still talking fast, and stayed with Sally and Charlie while Fox checked the trunks. Then the train came and Sally lingered at the door of the car.

"Good-bye, Sally," Henrietta called. "Perhaps I could come to visit you if you asked me."

"I will if I can," said Sally. "You know it won't be my house and I'm afraid that Cousin Martha may not find it convenient. If it was my house I'd ask you now."

The train started. "Good-bye, Sally," Henrietta called again as she ran along the platform; "I wish I were going with you."

"I wish you were," Sally answered. "Oh, I do wish you were, Henrietta.

Good-bye."

For Henrietta had come to the end of the platform and had stopped.

The train was going almost too fast for her anyway.

"You'd better come inside, Sally." And Fox drew her inside and shut the door.

Doctor Galen met the little party upon its arrival in the city. There was nearly an hour before their train left for New York, and the doctor suggested that they all have lunch together in the station.

Sally started to protest, for did they not have a package containing cold chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and bread-and-b.u.t.ter? But the doctor observed that he had never yet seen the time when a cold lunch did not come in handy, and they might find use for it later; and, besides, he had the lunch ordered and a table reserved. A feeling almost of cheerfulness stole over Sally's spirits; and when, lunch over, they were parting from the doctor at the steps of the car, Sally looked up at him somewhat wistfully. He interpreted her look rightly, and bent down.

"Would you, Sally?" he asked. "And one for Mrs. Galen, too. Remember, we haven't any children of our own."

At that, Sally threw her arms around his neck and gave him two for himself and two for Mrs. Galen. The doctor straightened again.

"Bless you, Sally!" he said softly. "I wish you belonged to us. Don't forget your promise."

CHAPTER XIV

It was very early, as the habits of the Ladue family went, when the train pulled into the station at Whitby. For Professor Ladue had not been an early riser. College professors of certain types are not noted for their earliness. One of these types had been well represented by Professor Ladue. He had not, to be sure, ever met his cla.s.ses clad in his evening clothes; but, no doubt, he would have done so, in time, if his career had not been cut short.

The train did not go beyond Whitby. One reason why it did not was that there was nothing beyond but water and no stations of permanence.

There was plenty of time to get out of the train without feeling hurried. Fox got out and helped Charlie down the steps; and Sally got out, feeling as if she had already been up half the night. Indeed, she had, almost, for she had been so afraid of oversleeping that she had been only dozing since midnight.

"I wonder, Fox," she said as she came down the steps, "whether there will be any one here to meet us."

"Cast your eye over the crowd," Fox whispered, "and if you see a thin, haughty lady standing somewhat aloof from the common herd, I'll bet my hat that's Martha."

Sally chuckled involuntarily, and she cast her eye over the crowd as Fox had told her to do. There _was_ a lady, who seemed to be somewhat haughty, standing back by the wall of the station, aloof from the common herd, but she was not as thin as Sally had expected Cousin Martha to be. This lady was evidently expecting somebody--or somebodies--and was watching, with a shadow of anxiety on her face, as the crowd poured out of the doors and flowed down the steps. Then her gaze happened to alight upon Sally and her eyebrows lifted, quickly, and she smiled. Sally smiled as quickly in return and made up her mind, on the spot, that, if that was Cousin Martha, she should rather like Cousin Martha.

The lady had come forward at once, with a rapid, nervous walk, and met them as soon as the crowd would let her.

"Sarah Ladue?" she asked.

"Sally, Cousin Martha," Sally replied. "Everybody calls me Sally."

"Well, I am very glad to see you, Sally." Cousin Martha kissed her on the cheek; a quick, nervous peck. Sally tried to kiss Cousin Martha while she had the chance, but she succeeded in getting no more than a corner of a veil. "How did you know me?"

"I didn't. I only saw that you were looking for somebody, and I thought it might be me you were looking for."

"Oh, so that was it!" Miss Hazen smiled faintly and sighed. "I thought that perhaps you might have recognized me from the photograph I once gave your father. But I forgot that that was a great many years ago."

She sighed again.