“That horrible new sore throat! Oh, Rachel, and you have been hanging over her all this time!”
“Indeed,” said Alick Keith, coming to her. “I think you need not be alarmed. The complaint seems to me to depend on the air and locality. I have been often with people who had it.”
“And not caught it?”
“No; though one poor little fellow, our piper’s son, would not try to take food from any one else, and died at last on my knee. I do not believe it is infectious in that way.”
And hearing his carriage at the door, he shook hands, and hurried off, Mrs. Curtis observing—
“He really is a very good young man. But oh, Rachel, my dear, how could you bring her here?”
“I did not know, mother. Any way it is better than her being in Mrs. Kelland’s hive of children.”
“You are not going back to her, Rachel, I entreat!”
“Mother, I must. You heard what Captain Keith said. Let that comfort you. It would be brutal cruelty and cowardice to stay away from her to night. Good night, Grace, make mother see that it must be so.”
She went, for poor Mrs. Curtis could not withstand her; and only turned with tearful eyes to her elder daughter to say, “You do not go into the room again, Grace, I insist.”