Soon
after they were off Charlotte drew her big white veil over her head and
face, and was lost to view beneath its protecting expanse. One of the
veil's fluttering ends persisted in blowing across Leaver's breast, quite
unnoticed by its owner, whose head did not often turn that way. The man
did not put it aside, but after a time he took hold of it and kept it in
his hand, secure from the domineering breeze.
"Here we are! Behold Sunny Farm, the dream of Doctor and Mrs. Red Pepper,
given tangible shape. Not a bad-looking old rambling place, is it?"
Macauley brought his car to rest beside the long green roadster already
there. Its occupants jumped out and strolled up the slope toward the
white farmhouse, across whose front and wing stretched long porches, on
one of which stood a steamer chair and a white iron bed, each holding a
small form. Upon the step sat Ellen Burns and a nurse in a white uniform;
by the bed stood Burns himself.
Miss Mathewson's observant eyes were taking veiled note of her recent
charge as he went up the steps and approached the bed. The little patient
upon it had not lifted his head, as had the child in the chair, to see
who was at hand.
"Oh, the little pitiful face!" breathed Charlotte Ruston in Amy's ear, as
she looked down into a pair of great black eyes, set in hollows so deep
that they seemed the chiseling of merciless pain.
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