Miss Judy on her side was not nearly so confident. When Sidney had gone and she began to realize what she had undertaken, she was a good deal frightened. She not only knew almost nothing about children, as she had confessed to this troubled poor mother; but she had always been rather afraid of them. It had always seemed to her an appalling responsibility to assume the forming of one of these impressionable little souls; she had often wondered tremblingly at the lightness with which many mothers assumed it. And here _she_ was--rushing voluntarily into the very responsibility which she had always regarded with awe--almost with terror. More and more disturbed and perplexed as she thought of her foolish rashness, she nevertheless mechanically set about getting ready for taking charge of Doris during the next day, and perhaps for many other days, until she had at least tried to see what she could do for the child. As a first step in the preparation she climbed the steep stairs to the loft, which she had not entered for years, and brought down an old doll of Miss Sophia's, and dusted it and straightened its antiquated clothes; putting it in readiness for the ordeal of Doris on the following morning.
"She can sit on the home-made rug, you know, sister Sophia," said Miss Judy, nervously.
"Just so, sister Judy," promptly and firmly responded Miss Sophia, who never noticed where anybody sat.
"And don't you think it would be a good idea to have Merica make a pig and a kitten out of gingerbread? They might perhaps amuse the child, and keep her from crying. A half pint of flour would be quite enough, and we _have_ to have the fire anyway because it's ironing day. Then Merica picked up a big basket of chips behind the cabinet-maker's shop this morning."
"Just so, sister Judy," answered Miss Sophia, who left all provision for fire and for everything else wholly to her sister. "And she might make _us_ some gingerbread too, while she's about it."
"To be sure!" exclaimed Miss Judy, looking at Miss Sophia in loving admiration. "So she can. How quick you are to see the right way, sister Sophia. I never seem to think of things as you do."
But even as she spoke, a thought flashed uneasily across her mind, causing her sweet old face to beam less brightly. What if the child would _not_ sit on the home-made rug? She had never been used to carpets--poor little thing. What if she crumbled the gingerbread all over everything, as Miss Judy had seen children do, time and again! The thought of such desecration of the carpet that her mother had made, for which she had carded the wool and spun the warp and woven the woof, all with her own dear little hands, made Miss Judy feel almost faint. The risk of such danger threw her into more and more of a panic. She hardly slept that night, troubled by dread of what she had so thoughtfully undertaken. She was pale and trembling with fright when Sidney brought Doris and left her early on the following day.