“He does almost laugh, sometimes,” pleaded the patient, sadly disappointed, and looking up with pathetic earnestness.
“It’s because you are all looking at him. Please go away, I am quite sure that worn—that lady, will make him cry harder. He seems to know what she wants, poor little fellow.”
“But the authorities have decided he must be put out to nurse.”
“But not yet, oh! not yet; besides—”
She lifted up her hand, with a gesture that induced the doctor to stoop.
“Besides, she does not look kind,” she whispered, trembling with fear lest the woman might understand her. “Indeed; indeed, she does not!”
“Look here,” interposed Jane Kelly. “This sort of humbug can’t go on any longer. Doctor, you may take it on yourself to disobey an order from headquarters, but I won’t. This woman is authorized to take this very child, it being an orphan,—and this child she is going to have, if all the women in the ward go into hysterics.”
Here Mrs. Dillon interfered.
“Let the poor thing be, doctor; one day can do no harm. If the child is to be put out, give me a chance; no own mother ever took such care of it as I will.”
Here the young woman started up in bed.