Constance smiled at the child's quoting of the phrases which she had heard in the long sermons that Elder Brewster read, or delivered to them twice on Sunday, there being no minister yet come to Plymouth.
"You little echo!" Constance cried. "It surely would be a matter to move one's pity if you suffered so deeply as that in the loss of your playground! Well, dear, till the warmth breaks up I suppose you may keep your house with Love, but promise to leave it if you feel chilly there. We must trust you so far. Art going there now?"
"Yes, dear Constance. You have a heart of compassion and I love you with all of mine," said Damaris, expressing herself again like a little Puritan, but hugging her sister with the natural heartiness of a loving child.
Then she ran away, and Constance, taking her capacious darning bag on her arm, went to bear Priscilla Alden company at her mending, as she often did when no work about the house detained her.
Giles came running down the road when the afternoon had half gone, his face white. "Con, come home!" he cried, bursting open the door. "Hasten! Damaris is strangely ill."
Constance sprang up, throwing her work in all directions, and Priscilla sprang up with her. Without stopping to pick up a thread, the two girls went with Giles.
"I don't know what it is," Giles said, in reply to Constance's questions. "Love Brewster came running to Dame Hopkins, crying that Damaris was sick and strange. She followed him to the children's playground, and carried the child home. She is like to die; convulsions and every sign of poison she has, but what it is, what to do, no one knows. The women are there, but Doctor Fuller, as you know, is gone to a squaw who is suffering sore, and we could not bring him, even if we knew where he was, till it was too late. They have done all that they can recall for such seizures, but the child grows worse."
"Oh, Giles!" groaned Constance. "She hath eaten poison. What has Doctor Fuller told me of these things? If only I can remember! All I can think of is that he hath said different poisons require different treatment. Oh, Giles, Giles!"
"Steady, Sister; it may be that you can help," said Giles. "It had not occurred to any one how much the doctor had told you of his methods. Perhaps Love will know what Damaris touched."