“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary Winkle with reviving spirit.
Madame came up at this moment looking as fresh as a lily: she glanced sharply at Sister Mary. “You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.
Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes, but did not speak.
“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued, sitting down and beginning on her piece of chicken with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy would set you up in no time.”
Sister Mary herself sat up at this.
“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,” she said resolutely.
Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because you were dying: wine as everything else is then useless: but because you look weak. I suggested a medicine.”
“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a drink I scorn to take a rank poison.”
“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness strychnine in small doses for certain forms of dyspepsia, and I believe satisfactorily,” said Madame.
“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more insidious in its action and more liable to abuse,” said Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin cup of milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it with eagerness.