“All right, Silva?” Maida was enquiring and to Silva’s faint “Yes,” Rosie was saying, “We’re all awfully glad you’re going to be here with us,” and “Just as soon as you are well enough, you’ve got to teach us how to make those beautiful baskets,” Laura was contributing. The boys didn’t seem to be able to do anything but they were making attempts--highly unsuccessful ones to be sure--to assist the two men. Up-stairs, they left Silva alone with the girls. Maida immediately took off the long rusty coat that Silva was wearing, her worn and stained middy blouse; her ragged skirt; undressed her; put on first one of her own simple white nightgowns and over it her favorite dressing gown of organdie muslin with pink ribbon. Laura brought a pair of pink bed shoes; slipped them on Silva’s slender feet. Rosie contributed a boudoir cap of white lace with pink ribbons which she had managed to fashion in the hour they had waited for Silva. And then in answer to the beseeching look in Silva’s eyes, Rosie brought the cooing little Nesta and put her in her sister’s arms. “My father is going to send for your father, Silva,” Maida explained. “He is going to ask him to let you and Tyma and the baby stay with us. Your father will say yes, Silva--people always say yes to my father--and then if you like us, we want you to live with us as long as we stay here.” “Only a few weeks longer,” Rosie added in a wailing voice, “then school begins.” Silva, only half hearing, was kissing her little sister with violent flurries of kisses. And her eyes were filling with tears. She made no effort to check them because that would have been impossible. Finally she put her head down on the arm of her chair and cried. The others kept a frightened silence. Rosie, recovering first, noiselessly removed Nesta. Silva made no attempt to keep her. Maida slipped into the bathroom and came back with a wet face cloth and a towel; proceeded to bathe Silva’s face. Silva submitted meekly. Laura disappeared and returned with a bottle of toilet water with which she sprinkled Silva. “Oh you are so good to me,” Silva said when she could control her voice. “And when I think of how I treated you-- I didn’t want to though. I--I had to. But when I’m well, I’ll gladly show you how to make baskets. And I know where the berries grow thickest and biggest ... I’ll take you to all my secret places ... I do thank you! I do! I do! With all my heart!” CHAPTER XXV THE END OF SUMMER Outside all was wind, rain, confusion and destruction. Occasionally a bough came crashing down to earth and always the branches of the great tree beside Maida’s window, rubbed against the house. The wind veered and whirled. One moment the rain was coming, like a shower of bullets, against the window of one side; the next it was lashing, like a bundle of twigs, against the glass of another.