"Oh, wasn't it wonderful to do what you did ... it was almost like the miracles our dear Lord performed, for you gave sight to the blind and raised up one who was almost dead. I am so glad for that little child and her dear father, and I don't wonder that he gave you a lot of money. Was it ... was it as much as a ... a thousand dollars?" she asked in an awed tone.
"Yes, indeed, much more than that, in fact."
"Not five thousand?"
Donald laughed. "The newspaper men, who had somehow or other got wind of the story—goodness knows how—tried mighty hard to get me to tell them how much, but I wouldn't. However, since I know that you can keep a secret, I will tell you. It was just ten times the amount of your last guess."
"Oh!" she gasped, as the result of the multiplication dawned upon her. "Why, it was a fortune, and ... and I know you."
"Of course it pleased me," was his answer, "but not half as much as the result of the operation, dear. If a doctor is really in earnest, and bound up in his work, he never thinks whether the little sufferer stretched before him in bed, or on the operating table, has a father worth a million dollars, or one in the poorhouse. That is the reason why we have to charge for our services by a different standard from men in almost any other kind of work. The rich man has to help pay for the poor man, whether he wants to or not. I meant to charge that very rich man enough so that I could give myself to a great many poor children without charging them anything, perhaps; but he had a big heart and sent me that check for several times what I should have charged without even waiting for me to make out a bill. And his letter, which came with it, said that even fifty thousand dollars was poor compensation for a life worth more to him than all the money in the whole world."
"A little child's life is more precious than all the gold that ever was," said Smiles seriously, "for only God can give it."