"Mercy sakes!" Her hand reached for her cap.
But Dr. Carmon had bent to the floor and picked up the cap. He was
holding it and looking at her. "How old are you, Aunt Jane?" he said
sternly.
Aunt Jane, out of the maze of her hair, looked up. "I am forty-five
years old," she said. "Give me my cap!"
"Say, 'please,'" said Dr. Carmon gravely, holding it at arm's length.
From the beds, the children looked on with shining eyes.
Aunt Jane looked at the cap--and at the child in her arms--and felt the
eyes encircling her--and smiled a little.
"Please," she said meekly, and her hand reached up.
But Dr. Carmon held it still at arm's length. "Say, 'please, Frederic,'"
he insisted.... Not even the nearest bed could have guessed the words
that went with the laughing gesture of the hand holding the cap.
But Aunt Jane's face flushed swiftly.
She gathered the child in her arms and carried her to her bed and put
her down gently. Then her hands caught up the tumbled hair and fastened
it in place and smoothed it down, and she came placidly back to Dr.
Carmon.
His face was very grave. But something in behind his eyes laughed.
He held out the cap with a low bow.
She took it and put it on her head, with dignity, and looked for her
spectacles.
"They're on the table," said Dr. Carmon.
He handed them to her and she put them on and gazed at him in serene
competence. "I'll send Miss Simpson up to you--I suppose you'll want
her," she said.
"Yes--_please_," said Dr. Carmon, polite and grave.
Aunt Jane hesitated a second. Then her hand motioned to the beds. "The
Lord never see fit to let me have any of my own--not to grow up.... I've
always thought he was making it up to me this way," she said, and there
was something almost like an appeal in the quiet words.
The doctor looked at her, and then at the children's faces. "I should
say he's making it up to _them_," he said gruffly.
He watched the serene figure as it passed through the swinging doors....
His face, as he went among the children and questioned them and listened
absently to their replies, was full of gentleness and kindness, and a
little, shy, flitting happiness that beamed on them.