“Number forty-four, here, not quite so well as I should like to see her. Been a little feverish in the night, has she not, nurse?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the nurse; “but if I might say so—.”
“Of course, of course,” said Sir Denton, “a little irritable.”
“I think it is more that she is fretting to get away from here, than from any fresh complication.”
“Let’s see,” said the keen-looking old surgeon, turning at once to the bed, where Maria had lain watching them and trying to catch their words. “Well,” he said aloud, as he seated himself and made his rapid examination, “flowers and fruit, and a clear eye and a clean tongue. Healthy look, too, about your skin, and the colour coming back. Why, you may get up—yes, for an hour or two, say the day after to-morrow, and in another week or two we will send you back home cured. What do you say to that?”
“Thanky, sir.”
“Strange woman, that,” said Sir Denton, an hour later, when he was leaving the ward. “I believe that when she was made, all the atoms or particles which go to form the virtue known as gratitude were left out. What do you say, nurse?”
“The poor woman has suffered a great deal.”
“Yes, but she might have shown some little thankfulness to you for what you have done.”
“I, Sir Denton?” said the nurse deprecatingly. “Yes, my child, you. What I have done would have been useless without your help. But there, it is waste of words to praise you, for you are a dreadful sceptic. By the way, Elthorne, there is nothing to prevent you from taking a week’s run. You ought to have it now.”