“Yes,” says Jeannette, and calls, “Ernest!”
Ernest comes out of his dream. The great dark, sorrowful eyes meet the great bright, generous ones. In a twinkling young America, with lusty health and blooming cheeks, is at the bedside of—young France, shall we say?
An hour after Ned hastens home to his sister with the story he has just heard.
“Belle,” he cries, as he bursts into the parlor, “you know where you sent me this afternoon—to that French woman’s? Well, they’re poor as can be. And he’s sick, too. And no doctor, no medicine, no nothing! Wish I was as rich as Crœsus!”
“He? Who’s he?”
“Why, Ernest. His father was an artist, you see; and they came to this country, and his pictures wouldn’t sell, and he couldn’t get work, and he got discouraged and drowned himself. Then, after awhile, his mother died, and Jeannette—she’s a servant who came with them—she stays with him and takes care of him. He’s got the consumption and coughs awfully. I know what’s done it! Starving! and freezing! Guess what he was doing! Warming his hands in the sunshine!”
“Well, did she say when she would have the window curtain finished?”
Where shall one go for sympathy and help? There is no mother. The father is a hundred miles away, engaged as counsel in the settlement of a disputed estate (if anybody knows what all that means). The live-long night Ned lies awake, thinking the matter over something after this fashion:
“There’s that house—corner of South and High Street. Rooms to let—noticed the advertisement to-day. Nice rooms. Plenty of light. Just the place!... Wish I was rich as Crœsus!... What did I want to go and throw away my last allowance that way for? Haven’t got a red cent left! Don’t know where it’s all gone to, now! Got a lot of trinkets that aren’t of much use to me, anyhow. Cut my thumb half off with my jack-knife first time I used it; broke all the strings to my violin before I’d had it a week; and made myself about sick trying to smoke cigars.... Wish I was rich as Crœsus!”
When, next morning, Ned meets on the street his elderly friend, the physician, who helped him comfortably through with the measles, mumps and whooping cough, and is greeted with, “Why, young man, there’s a cloud on your face—what’s the trouble?” he answers, “Come and see,” and leads to a dismal quarter of the town, and from one story to another of a dismal tenement, till they reach the chamber where Ernest lies. When they are down in the street again, Ned takes up the old refrain—