“Not that dreadful Feelier Potts, Hazel?”
“Hush, dear! The child is dangerously ill, and her mother can hear your words.”
“But it would be madness to go. It is an infectious disease.”
“I feel, dear, as if it is my duty to go,” replied Hazel, with a curious, far-off look in her eyes; and without another word she followed to the little low cottage by the side of the road.
“There, miss, if you’d stand there I think you could hear her. You see the window’s open. I’ll go upstairs and stir her up like, and then you speak, and—”
“I want teacher! When will she come?”
The words came in a low, harsh tone plainly to Hazel’s ears, and with a sigh she walked straight up to the door. “But you hadn’t better go anigh her. The doctor said—”
“It will not hurt me,” said Hazel quietly.
“Well, miss, if you wouldn’t mind, it would do her a power of good, I’m sure. This way, miss,” and she led her visitor through the room where she had been washing, to the awkward, well-worn staircase, and up this to poor Feelier’s blank-looking room.
“I want teacher!—I want teacher!” came the weary burden as Hazel walked up to the bedside, shocked at the way in which the poor girl had changed.