A DEEP SLEEP.
Late though it was, Elfie was still sleepy and looked in the bright
daylight so worn and hollow-eyed that Marion longed to wake her, the
sleep seemed so death-like. She was very much puzzled about what to
do next. Sending a telegram to Mrs. Abbott was naturally of the first
importance, but she would not leave Elfie long enough to do it. True,
she might lock her in the room while she ran out to send a dispatch,
but in that time the child might wake and cry out and be discovered at
once. She thought Madame Belotti’s party had gone, but possibly some
order had been left to send her the missing child when found, or one of
the women might be waiting in the neighborhood.
A loud knocking at the door startled her out of her perplexed musings.
“Who is it?” she asked, going close to the door, but not unlocking it.
“Is there anny wan at all in the room?” was the answer.
“Yes, I am here.”
“Well, it’d take more sinse than there is in mesilf to know who ‘Oi’
is. It is mebby the young leddy the dark tould us took board here from
yisterday till the day, and has never come to the dining-room yit for a
drink nor a crumb?”
“Yes, that’s me,” said Marion, thinking hard over an idea that had
suggested itself to her, and which she decided to follow if the owner
of the voice that was answering her looked trustworthy. She opened the
door enough then to get a peep at a big, good-natured Irish woman with
the fine, fresh coloring and innocent, unsophisticated look that is
only worn by the newest importations from the “swatest gim o’ the say.”
One look at the pleasant, honest face determined her.
“Will you do me a favor?” she asked very softly, fearing terribly that
the sound of her voice might rouse Elfie into a wild outcry.
“That will Oi, indade that will Oi,” was the quick response, made
more cheerful, perhaps, by seeing a half-dollar held out in Marion’s
fingers. “Is it breakfast ye’ll be wanting brought up till yer room?”
“Yes, I do wish you’d bring me up some breakfast,” said Marion,
thinking more of Elfie than herself, “and a glass of milk with it, for
I don’t want to go to the dining-room. But that was not the favor I
meant; I want you to go over to the restaurant across the street for me
and tell Mrs. Jones that the little girl who mended stockings for her
yesterday afternoon is not well, and if she will come over here for a
few minutes; and please bring her right up to this room. After that you
may bring me up the breakfast, please.”
“Really, it is true, I am not well,” said Marion to herself, in excuse
for the plea upon which she had summoned Mrs. Jones, who, in about five
minutes, came lumbering up the stairs, quite out of breath with their
steepness.
Her fat, honest face looked full of sympathy as she came in the room,
escorted by the maid, who shut the door and left them together.
“I hope you aint sickening down for scarlet fever or dipthery, or any
of those dangerous things, an’ you so far off from home,” said she,
looking anxiously at Marion’s flushed face and heavy eyes.
“No, no, Mrs. Jones; there is nothing the matter with me but fatigue
and worry; but you are lovely to come, and I will never forget your
kindness. I am in great trouble and must have help from somebody.”
Then good Mrs. Jones, instead of shrinking away with the feeling
strangers often have that a young person all alone in a strange
place had probably brought her trouble, whatever it was upon herself
and therefore deserved it, took her on her lap as she sat in the
straight-backed little rocking-chair, and, smoothing back her curly
hair, murmured:
“There, there, poor little thing!” as if she had been a tired baby.
“Tell me all about it, dearie, and pa and me between us can likely help
you out some way.”
Marion could not doubt her, so as rapidly as she could she told her how
she had followed Elfie and now had rescued her from the people who had
undoubtedly been hired to steal her by those who had an interest in
getting possession of her.
“And now,” said Mrs. Jones, who had constantly interrupted the story
with exclamations, questions, and conjectures, “you had better bring
the little dear right over to my place.”
“No, no, Mrs. Jones; I dare not do that. I cannot let any one see Elfie
or know that I have her here till I can get Mrs. Abbott. Madame Belotti
or some of those people may be hiding and watching, and if they saw
Elfie and claimed her how could I prove that I had a right to keep her
from them?”
“My gracious! Aint she got a wise old head on her young shoulders?”
said Mrs. Jones, shaking her own head at the bowl and pitcher on the
washstand as if they were, like herself, lost in admiration of such
youthful sagacity.
“What I hope you will do for me, Mrs. Jones, is to go and telegraph to
Mrs. Abbott.”
“Of course I will; what shall I say?”
“I’ve pricked the message all down with a pin on the inside of an
envelope I had in my pocket; I had no pencil. I will read it to you,
but if you forget you can make it out again from this, I know; or if
you will lay this on a clean sheet of paper and rub dry bluing on it it
will mark down the words plainly. I have often done embroidery patterns
that way at school.”
Mrs. Jones gave another admiring shake of her head toward the washbowl
and pitcher, and rose to go on her errand, promising to come back
directly.
“COVENTRY SCHOOL: Elfie is with me. Come at once to the Secor
House, Troy, N. Y.
“M. A. STUBBS.”
So ran the dispatch which Marion had pricked upon the paper after
a fashion she had learned from the girls at school for copying and
transferring braiding patterns.
Sally, the good-natured maid, came to the door then with a tray of
breakfast which Marion put on the table and partook of very sparingly,
reserving the best for Elfie, who still slept on, although it was
almost twelve o’clock.
There were three little taps with a finger-nail on the door in about
half an hour, and Marion, recognizing the signal agreed upon, let in
Mrs. Jones, who had sent off the dispatch, and as the result of talking
over the matter with “pa,” to whom some explanation of her visit to the
hotel had to be made, had thought of a new cause for anxiety, which
was a possibility that Elfie’s long sleep might be the effect of an
overdose of the quieting drops.
“And pa,” said Mrs. Jones, “advises waking of her up directly, and, if
it can’t be done, getting in a doctor to see her.”
Frightful fears suggested themselves to Marion as Mrs. Jones gave
“pa’s” impressive advice, and she turned Elfie’s face toward her and
gently tried to awaken her; it was not an easy thing to do, but at last
the heavy lids were lifted, and, with a little fretful cry Marion had
never heard from her till the night before, she had lifted her head up
and looked around.
“Marion is with you; look, look, dear, it is your own Marion. Can’t you
see me? Don’t you know me?”
The child looked up at her sleepily a moment with neither wonder nor
recognition in her eyes, and then laid her head on the pillow and slept
again.