“Who will, then?” asked Louisa.
“I don’t know,” moaned the sick woman, unable to consider.
Louisa did it. The doctor came and gave serious examination. He looked very grave.
“What is it, doctor?” asked the old lady, looking up at him with old, pathetic eyes in which already hope was dead.
“I think you’ve torn the skin in which a tumour hangs,” he replied.
“Ay!” she murmured, and she turned away.
“You see, she may die any minute—and it may be swaled away,” said the old doctor to Louisa.
The young woman went upstairs again.
“He says the lump may be swaled away, and you may get quite well again,” she said.
“Ay!” murmured the old lady. It did not deceive her. Presently she asked: