“My goodness, I never realized how much work Granny and Mrs. Dore do,” Laura said once, “and how patient they are. Delia, that’s your fourth slice of bread and butter. Now you _must_ drink your milk.” CHAPTER XXII SILVA’S MESSAGE “After the dishes are washed and wiped, let’s set the table for supper,” Laura suggested. “Floribel will be so tired when she gets home, and thinks of all the work she’ll have to do alone.” So the girls added this to the work they had already done. “Shall we go in bathing this afternoon?” Rosie asked when the last knife and fork was in place. “You all go if you want,” Maida answered, “I don’t think I want to swim. Somehow I feel as though I’d like to stay about the house. So many things have happened that I’m worried about going away.” “So do I, Maida,” Laura agreed emphatically. So although the boys went in swimming as usual, the girls stayed at home. “I feel tired, too,” Maida remarked. They took books from the library and settled quietly in the Tree Room where they read and talked all the afternoon. They were interrupted twice--once by the boys who, as though they had a responsibility too, cut their swimming short--and by the baby. When the baby awoke, late in the afternoon, Rosie brought her downstairs into the air for a while. They all declared that she looked quite a different child. A tinge of pink had come into her soft brown cheeks and the warmth and moisture of her nap had curled the brown hair in her neck. “Oh you sweet _sweet_ darling!” Maida kissed the little girl ecstatically. “Oh how I wish your parents would give you to me! That’s all we need in the Little House--a baby. Delia’s not quite little enough.” She caught Delia and kissed her. “Delia bid dirl,” Delia protested. Even the boys were amused and entertained by their little visitor. Arthur deigned to make faces for her. They amused her enormously, and when Harold unloosed an ear-splitting whistle, she turned round, delighted eyes in his direction. But that she was still tired was evident; she kept falling into little naps. “I don’t think I’ll bathe her again so soon,” Rosie meditated with knitted brows when they had taken her upstairs for the night. “To-morrow I’ll give her a bath in the morning and another at night. But now I’ll just wash her face and hands and let her have her bottle. You do it this time, Maida and to-morrow,” added Rosie, generous always, “we’ll take turns bathing and feeding her.” As they came downstairs Laura said, “I wonder what time it is. Oh half past five!” “Five!” Maida exclaimed. “Why Floribel ought to have been home at five! What train can she get now?” Nobody knew, but Arthur remembered there was a time-table in the library. They clustered about him. To most of them it was as difficult as Greek; but to Arthur, who had had some experience in traveling and to Maida who had had a great deal, it did not seem insolvable. They puzzled over it together.