"Why!" exclaimed Fanny, sitting down on the floor rather
heavily. Then her eye fell upon a card tossed aside in the
hurry of unpacking. She picked it up, read it hastily.
"Merry Christmas to the best daughter in the world. From
her Mother."
Mrs. Brandeis had taken off her wraps and was standing over
the sitting-room register, rubbing her numbed hands and
smiling a little.
"Why, Mother!" Fanny scrambled to her feet. "You darling!
In all that rush and work, to take time to think of me!
Why--" Her arms were around her mother's shoulders. She was
pressing her glowing cheek against the pale, cold one. And
they both wept a little, from emotion, and weariness, and
relief, and enjoyed it, as women sometimes do.
Fanny made her mother stay in bed next morning, a thing that
Mrs. Brandeis took to most ungracefully. After the holiday
rush and strain she invariably had a severe cold, the
protest of the body she had over-driven and under-nourished
for two or three weeks. As a patient she was as trying and
fractious as a man, tossing about, threatening to get up,
demanding hot-water bags, cold compresses, alcohol rubs.
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