Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been
temporarily replaced by interest and curiosity. There was a wooden box
on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it was
full of neat packages.
Mr. Craven sent it to you, said Martha. It looks as if it had
picture-books in it.
Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room.
Do you want anything dolls toys books? She opened the package
wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what she should do
with it if he had. But he had not sent one. There were several
beautiful books such as Colin had, and two of them were about gardens
and were full of pictures. There were two or three games and there was
a beautiful little writing-case with a gold monogram on it and a gold
pen and inkstand.
Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her anger out
of her mind. She had not expected him to remember her at all and her
hard little heart grew quite warm.
I can write better than I can print, she said, and the first thing I
shall write with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am much
obliged.
If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her
presents at once, and they would have looked at the pictures and read
some of the gardening books and perhaps tried playing the games, and he
would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once have thought he
was going to die or have put his hand on his spine to see if there was
a lump coming. He had a way of doing that which she could not bear. It
gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling because he always looked
so frightened himself. He said that if he felt even quite a little lump
some day he should know his hunch had begun to grow. Something he had
heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given him the idea and
he had thought over it in secret until it was quite firmly fixed in his
mind. Mrs. Medlock had said his father s back had begun to show its
crookedness in that way when he was a child. He had never told anyone
but Mary that most of his tantrums as they called them grew out of
his hysterical hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had
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