"And the trunk that is roughest below may branch out greenest a-top!" said the doctor.
The talk Faith heard now and then, in her walks from home, or when some of "the girls" came in and called her down into the parlor—about pretty looks, and becoming dresses, and who danced with who at the "German" last night, and what a scrape Loolie Lloyd had got into with mixing up and misdating her engagements at the class, and the last new roll for the hair—used to seem rather trivial to her in these days!
Occasionally, when Mr. Gartney had what nurse called a "good" day, he would begin to ask for some of his books and papers, with a thought toward business; and then Miss Sampson would display her carpetbag, and make a show of picking up things to put in it. "For," said she, "when you get at your business, it'll be high time for me to go about mine."
"But only for half an hour, nurse! I'll give you that much leave of absence, and then we'll have things back again as they were before."
"I guess you will! And further than they were before. No, Mr. Gartney, you've got to behave. I won't have them vicious-looking accounts about, and it don't signify."
"If it don't, why not?" But it ended in the accounts and the carpetbag disappearing together.
Until one morning, some three weeks from the beginning of Mr. Gartney's illness, when, after a few days' letting alone the whole subject, he suddenly appealed to the doctor.
"Doctor," said he, as that gentleman entered, "I must have Braybrook up here this afternoon. I dropped things just where I stood, you know. It's time to take an observation."
The doctor looked at his patient gravely.
"Can't you be content with simply picking up things, and putting them by, for this year? What I ought to tell you to do would be to send business to the right about, and go off for an entire rest and change, for three months, at least."