"You mustn’t cry, Gusta," said Elizabeth.
Gusta sat twisting her fingers together, in and out, while the tears fell. She could not speak for a moment, and then she looked up and tried to smile.
"You mustn’t cry," Elizabeth repeated. "You aren’t half so pretty when you cry."
Gusta’s wet lashes were winking rapidly, and she took out her handkerchief and wiped her face and her eyes, and Elizabeth looked at her intently.
"Poor child!" she said presently. "What a time you’ve had!"
"Oh, Miss Elizabeth!" said Gusta, the tears starting afresh at this expression of sympathy, "we’ve had a dreadful time!"
"And we’ve missed you awfully," said Elizabeth. "When are you coming back to us?"
Gusta looked up gratefully. "I don’t know, Miss Elizabeth; I wish I did. But you see my mother is sick ever since father--"
"And how is your father? We saw in the newspaper how badly he had been hurt."
"Was it in the paper?" said Gusta eagerly, leaning forward a little.
"Yes, didn’t you see it? It was just a little item; it gave few of the details, and it must have misspelled--" But Elizabeth stopped.
"I didn’t see it," said Gusta. "He was hurt dreadfully, Miss Elizabeth; they cut his leg off at the hospital."
"Oh, Gusta! And he’s there still, of course?"
"Yes, and we don’t know how long he’ll have to stay. Maybe he’ll have to go under another operation."
"Oh, I hope not!" said Elizabeth. "Tell me how he was hurt."
"Well, Miss Elizabeth, we don’t just know--not just exactly. He had knocked off work and left the shops and was coming across the yards--he always comes home that way, you know--but it was dark, and the snow was all over everything, and the ice, and somehow he slipped and caught his foot in a frog, and just then a switch-engine came along and ran over his leg."
"Oh, horrible!" Elizabeth’s brows contracted in pain.
"The ambulance took him right away to the Hospital. Ma felt awful bad ’cause they wouldn’t let him be fetched home. She didn’t want him taken to the hospital."
"But that was the best place for him, Gusta; the very best place in the world."
"That’s what Archie says," said Gusta, "but ma doesn’t like it; she can’t get used to it, and she says--" Gusta hesitated,--"she says we can’t afford to keep him there."