“I’ll have her here before nightfall, and she’ll bring the necessary medicines and directions as to the line of treatment I want carried out for Barbara, who has collapsed completely. Now mind, it isn’t altogether her care of your wife that has brought this on. If Barbara Vernon has not had some terrible nervous shock before you met her, you may tear up my diploma and put me to carrying a hod. Barbara is threatened with a serious nervous collapse. Put her to bed at once, and keep her there till further orders.”
“And what about my wife?” asked Regan.
“The simplest thing in the world. She hardly needs watching at all, and that jewel of a girl of yours, Agnes, can do all that’s needed to the queen’s taste.”
“Oh, I love to nurse,” said the girl. “I’ve watched dear Miss Barbara, and I’ve learned so much. I know I can do it.”
“I believe you, my girl,” said the doctor kindly. “In fact, I’m sure of you. Now your father and I will carry Barbara to her bedroom, and you will then care for her till our nurse comes. I’ll lose no time in getting her.”
So Barbara was put to bed, and many and many a week passed before she rose from it again.
CHAPTER X
BOBBY, ASSISTED BY PEGGY, DEMONSTRATES A METHOD OF OBSERVING SILENCE, AND CELEBRATES A RED-LETTER DAY
“Say, uncle,” said Bobby one afternoon as the two were returning from a very successful day’s work at the Lantry Studio, “do you know that Peggy Sansone goes to communion every morning?”
“Oh, she does, does she?”
“Yes, at the seven-o’clock Mass. She used to go only once a week.”