Miss Mansfield hesitated a little before she agreed to his kind proposal.
"I should not like to have it said that I turned my niece away from my house to the hospital when she was so bad," she remarked.
"None but the ignorant and foolish would misunderstand your motives and blame you for so doing," replied Dr. Graham. "In the hospital, your niece will have the best advice and most skilful treatment. It would be difficult for you, occupied as you are, to provide for her wants and give her the attention she will require here."
Miss Mansfield was sensible enough to see the wisdom of the doctor's advice. She therefore made no further objection to his plan, but busied herself in carrying out his directions, and assisted to carry Ellen to the carriage. Still in a state of insensibility, she was lifted into the brougham and borne to the hospital. Here the good doctor was indefatigable in his efforts on her behalf, and did not leave till he saw her restored to consciousness, with her wounds comfortably dressed.
Her aunt remained with her to as late an hour as the rules of the hospital would permit, and then, not without many tears from Ellen, took her departure.
[CHAPTER X.]
A CONVERSATION.
WHILST her father was thus attending to Ellen, Miss Graham was anxiously awaiting his return home. He had left her at Mary's bedside, whither he had accompanied her. She had waited to see the patient fall into a deep sleep under the influence of the draught her father had prescribed before she left her. She quite expected to find him within when she re-entered her home, and was surprised at his absence, and still more so when an hour passed and yet he did not come.
"I cannot think what can be keeping papa," she remarked to her cousin, who was visiting her.
"Oh, he has probably been called to see some new patient," replied her companion, a pretty young lady, very fashionably dressed. "There's no accounting for a doctor's movements. Nor for a dressmaker's either, I'm thinking; they hardly ever keep their word. Mrs. Brown promised me my dress to-day, but she has not yet sent it. It is so tiresome, for I wanted particularly to wear it to-morrow."