So Patty was sitting on the door-step when a rough voice called from inside the house, "Be off with you, you lazy thing! Didn't I tell you an hour ago to be off for the milk? Be off with you, I say."
Poor Patty got off rather slowly, for she didn't feel well, and ran down the street and didn't stop till she got to the store. But coming home she didn't run so fast, for her head ached, and when she got home Nan Bruce scolded her. In a few minutes Patty went up-stairs to her poor garret, where she slept, and threw herself upon the bed, and cried herself to sleep. When she woke up she had a high fever, and in a short time she was delirious. Nan was much alarmed, and sent for the doctor, who said she had scarlet fever, and he got a good nurse for her. For three months no one expected she would recover, but after that she began to get well.
One morning, when she was nearly well, she said suddenly to the doctor, "Doctor, it seems to me as if I had seen you before."
"You have, I guess," said the doctor, laughing. "I have been here every day for three months."
"I don't mean that," said Patty, "but I feel as if I had seen you before those people took me off."
"How old were you when they took you off?" asked the doctor, who knew she had been stolen.
"I think I was seven, for it was on the very day after my birthday, I remember."
"Why, I had a little girl that was stolen the very day after she was seven years old," said the doctor. "She was carried off by gypsies."
"Why, the gypsies were the very people that carried me off, too."
"Patty, would you like to go and live with me?" asked the doctor.