“There will be,” responded the imperturbable Miss Falbe.
For a moment the poor lady thought she should faint; but her wrath got the upper hand. Flaming red, and with anything but mild eyes, she arose:
“It’s a shame for you, Miss Falbe; but that’s always the way with you. Now, I must scratch in the register; it is spoiled—all spoiled;” and the lady burst into tears for grief and vexation.
“But what’s to be understood by that?” asked Miss Falbe.
“Oh! you know well enough,” sobbed the lady. “When there is a baby, you should go to the hospital for poor women during confinement and not to us. You knew it well—yes, you knew it; I am sure you did.”
Miss Falbe smiled; Miss Falbe really smiled a little contemptuously as she went down the steps. Whether she knew it or not, is as well unknown; at any rate, she did not go to the hospital for poor women during confinement.
On the contrary, she went home again to the Ark and hunted up Madam Speckbom. The two ladies were well acquainted, and mutually cherished high regard for each other. When Miss Falbe was really in a strait to procure aid for some poor creature or other she had found, she always knew that Madam Speckbom had a little to spare on a pinch.
And Madam held Miss Falbe infinitely high—mostly, perhaps, because she was the only educated person who had ever shown genuine respect for her medical skill.
Besides, she used to declare that although she had so little to give, there were none of the town’s charitable ladies who did so much good and were so well liked as she.
But then when Madam learned that it was Loppen who was to be helped, she shook her curls in disapproval: