Dot's little finger pointed vaguely towards the mantelshelf. Mrs. Cragg walked thither, not noting that Dot's finger was now directed towards the cupboard.
"Ah, here's the bottle," she muttered, as she took up one with eight divisions into doses marked upon it. "What queer-looking stuff! That's Mr. May's concern, not mine. I don't believe Dot needs such a lot of medicine." She carried bottle and glass to the small table near the bed.
"I not like it," declared Dot. "Nor I won't take it till Pattie tomes."
"Nonsense! You'll take it, of course, if I give it to you. You've got to be a good girl." Mrs. Cragg was out of patience with Pattie's admirers.
She had seen the nurse administer Dot's medicine, and had once poured out a dose herself, the nurse standing by, so she felt secure as to quantities. Besides, the bottle was marked into doses. The liquid did not look as she would have expected from her recollections; but Dot's medicine had been once or twice changed, and Mrs. Cragg's mind was too much bent in another direction to allow of her noting details. She was growing annoyed with the length of Pattie's absence.
The door opened to admit—not Pattie, as at first Mrs. Cragg hoped, but the untidy maid-of-all-work.
"Mrs. Smithers wants to see yer," she announced.
"What a bother, and Pattie not come back! Well, tell Mrs. Smithers to come into the passage. I can't leave the child, and if I have her in the room, somebody is sure to say it's bad for Dot."
Mrs. Cragg had poured out the dose, and she put it on the little table, going outside the open door. Mrs. Smithers came briskly up.
"I haven't got a moment to spare," she said; "but I want you to come along presently. I've got something to tell you. There's going to be that flower-show next week, and I mean to get a new bonnet, and you ought too. And we'll settle to go together."