that's not it!" cried the girl, and buried her face in a sofa pillow.
"No, that's not it," he answered, under his breath. He shook his shoulders and walked away to the fire, stood staring down into it for a minute with sober eyes, then drew a long breath and came back to his sister.
"It's a relief that there's something we can do to help her get well," he said, slowly. "And she will get well, Celia--she will--she must!"
CHAPTER II
"Where's the shawl-strap?"
"Charlotte, wait just a moment; are you perfectly sure that mother's dressing sack and knit slippers are in the case? Nobody saw them put in, and I don't--"
"Justin, run down-stairs, please, and get that unopened package of water-biscuit. You'll find it on the pantry shelf, I think."
"Lanse, if the furnace runs all night with the draught on, your fire will be burned out in the morning, and it will take an extra amount of coal to get it started again."
"Where's Jeff? He must be told about--"
"Put mother's overshoes to warm."
"I have left two hundred dollars to your credit at the bank, Lansing, and I--"
"Lanse, did you telephone for--"
"Where did Celia put the--"
"Listen, all of you. I--"
"What did Jeff do with that small white--"
"Silence!" shouted Lansing, above the din. "Can't you people get these traps together without all yelling at once? You will have mother so used up she can't start."
Mrs. Birch smiled at her tall son from the easy chair where she had been placed ten minutes before, her family protesting that they could finish the numberless small tasks yet to be done. It was nine o'clock in the evening, and it lacked but an hour of train-time.
They all looked at the slender figure in the easy chair. They had learned in these last two weeks to take note of their mother's appearance as, with easy confidence in her exhaustless strength, they had never done before. Since the night when they had learned that she was not quite well, they had discovered for themselves the delicacy of the smiling face, the thinness of the graceful body, the many small signs by which those who run may read the evidences of lessened vitality, if their eyes are once opened. They wondered that they had not seen it all before, and found the only explanation in the cheery, undaunted spirit which had covered up every sign of fatigue.
"She is too tired already," declared Celia. "Run away, and let father and me finish."
But they would not go. How could they, with only an hour left? They subdued their voices, and ran whispering about. Jeff held a long conference in an undertone with his mother. Justin perched on the arm of her chair, with his head on her shoulder, and she would not have him taken away, her own heart sick within her at thought of the long absence from them all. Altogether, when one took into account the preceding fortnight of making ready for the trip, it was not strange that in this last hour of preparation she gave out entirely.
The first they knew of it was when Mr. Birch, with a low exclamation, sprang across the room, and catching up his wife in his arms, carried her to a couch.
"Water!" he said. "And open the window!"
Startled, they obeyed him. It was only a brief unconsciousness, and the lovely brown eyes when they unclosed were as full of bravery as ever, but Mr. Birch spoke anxiously to Lansing in the hall outside.
"I don't like to start with her, as worn-out as this," he said. "Yet everything is engaged--the state-room and all--and I don't want to delay without reason. There's not time to send to the city for Doctor Forester. Suppose you telephone Doctor Ridgway to come around and tell us what to do about starting. If he is out, try Sears or Barton. Have him hurry. We've barely forty-five minutes now."
In three minutes Lansing came back and beckoned his father out of the room.
"They're all out," he said, "I tried old Doctor Hitchcock, too, but he's sick in bed. How about that new doctor that's just moved in next door? I like his looks. He certainly will know enough to advise about this."
Mr. Birch hesitated a moment. "Well, call him," he decided.
Lansing was already down the stairs. Three minutes later he returned with the young doctor. Mr. Birch met them in the hall.
"Doctor Churchill, father." Mr. Birch looked keenly into a pair of eyes whose steady glance gave him instantly the feeling that here was a man to trust.
The young people waited impatiently outside while Doctor Churchill spent fifteen quiet minutes with their father and mother. When Mr. Birch came to the door again with the physician, he was looking relieved.
Doctor Churchill paused before the little group, his eyes glancing kindly at each in turn, as he spoke to Lansing. He certainly was young but there was about him an air of quiet confidence and decision which one felt instinctively would be justified by further acquaintance.
"Don't be anxious," he said. "All this hurry of preparation has been a severe test on her, taken with her reluctance to leave her home. She is feeling stronger now, and it will be better for her to get the leave-taking over than to postpone and dread it longer. You will all make it easy for her--No breakdowns," he cautioned, with a smile. "New Mexico is a great place, and you are doing the best thing in the world in getting her off before cold weather."
He was gone, but they felt as if a reviving breeze had passed over them, and when they went back to their mother's room it was with serene faces. If Charlotte swallowed hard at a lump in her throat, and Celia lingered an instant behind the rest to pinch the colour back into her cheeks, nobody observed it. Perhaps each was too occupied with acting his own light-hearted part. Somehow the minutes slipped away, and soon the travellers were at the door.
Into Mrs. Birch's face, also, the colour had returned, summoned there, it may be, not only by the doctor's stimulating draught, but by the insistence of her own will.
"Good-by! good-by! God be with you all!" murmured Mr. Birch, breaking with difficulty away from Justin's frantic hug.
Mrs. Birch, on Lansing's arm, had gone down the steps to the carriage. The father followed, surrounded by an eager group. Only Lansing was to go to the train. The others, as they crowded round the carriage door, were incoherently mingling parting messages. Then presently they were left behind, a suddenly quiet, sober group.
Inside the carriage Mrs. Birch, with her hand in her eldest son's, was saying to him things he never forgot, while his father looked steadily out of the window.
"I leave them in your care, dear," she told Lansing, in the quiet, confident tones to which he was used from her. "I could never go, I think, if I hadn't such a strong, brave, trustworthy son to leave in care of the younger ones. Celia will do her part, and do it beautifully, I know, but it's on you I rely."
"I'll do my best," he answered, cheerfully, although he felt, even more than before, the heavy responsibility upon him.
