"
"Next week?" said Mrs. Adams. "What is that for? Her year isn't
over."
"No, but she has gained faster than we thought she could, and she
is now almost as well as ever. If she hadn't been taken in time,
it would have been much harder to cure her; but now we think that,
if she is careful, she can go home to her family again. We told
her so to-night, and she was half wild for a moment; but then she
began to cry, because she must leave her 'dear young ladies,' as
she called you."
"Oh, dear, what shall we ever do without her?" sighed Polly. "I
was really getting quite fond of her. Now I'll have to devote
myself to Dicky and the other babies."
"Bridget has improved in your hands," said the doctor. "You girls,
without knowing it, have been doing the best kind of mission work,
and the Bridget who goes home will be a much more attractive
Bridget than the one who came here, for she has learned that there
is something a little beyond her old life of drudgery that she can
hope for and, in the end, gain."
"Hark! What's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams abruptly.
There was a sudden commotion in the parlor, the sound of excited
voices, mingled with inarticulate cries; then Aunt Jane called, in
a tone of agony,--
"Isabel! Polly! John! Quick, quick!"
Springing up, the doctor and his wife, followed by Polly and Alan,
ran to the parlor door where they looked in upon a strange scene,
for a full understanding of which it is necessary to go back a
little, to see what had been passing inside the room, while the
others had been talking on the piazza.
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