"No; it's a long case, and it will give her a chance to go to the country, and the people have waited nearly a week to get her."
"I suppose I'll have to give it up. Unless—unless—"
Millard paused a moment. Then he said:
"They say you are a trained nurse. If, now, I could coax you to go in as an acquaintance? You have met her, and you like her?"
"Oh, ever so much! She's so good and friendly. But I don't think I could go. The doctor's only beginning, but his practice is improving fast, and his position, you know, might be affected by my going out to nurse again."
But Mrs. Beswick looked a little excited, and Millard, making a hurried estimate of the Beswick financial condition from the few assets visible, concluded that the project was by no means hopeless.
"I wouldn't ask you to go out as a paid nurse. You would go and tender your services as a friend," he said.
"I'd feel like a wretch to be taking pay and pretending to do it all for kindness," said Mrs. Beswick, with a rueful laugh.
"Indeed, it would be a kindness, Mrs. Beswick, and it might save a valuable life."
"I don't know what to say till I consult the doctor," she said, dreaming of all the things she could do toward increasing the doctor's respectability if she had a little extra money. "I can not see that it would hurt his practice if managed in that way."