CHAPTER IX.
LIFE OR DEATH?
| "With God the Lord belong the issues from death."—Ps. 68; 18. |
The nursery was a corner room, opening both into Faith's and her mother's. Hendie and Mahala Harris had been removed upstairs, and the apartment was left at Miss Sampson's disposal. Mrs. Gartney's bed had been made up in the little dressing room at the head of the front entry, so that she and the nurse had the sick room between them.
Faith came down the two steps that led from her room into the nursery, the next night at bedtime, as Miss Sampson entered from her father's chamber to put on her night wrapper and make ready for her watch.
"How is he, nurse? He will get well, won't he? What does the doctor say?"
"Nothing," said Miss Sampson, shortly. "He don't know, and he don't pretend to. And that's just what proves he's good for something. He ain't one of the sort that comes into a sick room as if the Almighty had made him a kind of special delegit, and left the whole concern to him. He knows there's a solemner dealing there than his, whether it's for life or death."
"But he can't help thinking," said Faith, tremblingly. "And I wish I knew. What do you—?" But Faith paused, for she was afraid, after all, to finish the question, and to hear it answered.