"Not very inviting," apologized Maverick; "but I have two calls to make here in Boyd's Row,—old rookeries that ought to have been pulled down long ago, but I suppose they still bring in Boyd considerable. I have made a complaint about the drains: they are enough to breed a pestilence. Tom Byrne has three children down with scarlet-fever. Two of them will be carried out presently, but I hope to save the little girl. No—I won't take you in."
"Tom Byrne—he was a mill-hand. And I know his wife well. Yes, Maverick." And Jack followed him.
It was a two-story cottage with three rooms on a floor, and two families occupying it. The Byrnes were up-stairs.
The two beds were in the front room, for the middle one was dark. There was a well-worn carpet on the floor, and the furniture very poor. Jenny Byrne had sold her best to pay the quarter's rent in the last place which they had left the first of January, the landlord preferring it should stand empty. Her little savings had been swept away by the bank disaster: there was no work, and three children to feed, except that Deacon Boyd found Tom sufficient employment to pay his rent.
On one bed close by the window lay the little girl, heavy-eyed and crimson. The elder boy had come to the stupor that precedes death, the other was restless with a half delirium. Jenny Byrne's round rosy cheeks had vanished, and her eyes had a distraught look, the lurking fear of coming woe. She stared at Jack a moment, then stretched out her hand, but as quickly withdrew it.
"Did you tell him, doctor? O Mr. Darcy!"
"Yes. He would come."
She wiped away some tears with the corner of her faded apron, then answered a question of Jack's. What could he say to the poor thing? Surely she had done her duty with truest endeavor; and Tom Byrne was a very fair average man, liking his daily glass of beer, but rarely going farther.
"Can you fix a bed in the other room, and put Kitty in it?" the doctor asked. "She is better, but I would rather have her out of here."
"And Jamie is better too?" she questioned, with tremulous eagerness. "His fever is nearly gone, and he's having such a nice sleep"—