“What is your name?”
“Zénobie.”
“Madame Zénobie,” softly whispered the invalid, turning her eyes, with a glimmer of feeble pleasantry, first to the quadroon and then to her husband.
The physician smiled at her an instant, and then gave a few concise directions to the quadroon. “Get me”—thus and so.
The woman went and came. She was a superior nurse, like so many of her race. So obvious, indeed, was this, that when she gently pressed the young husband an inch or two aside, and murmured that “de doctah” wanted him to “go h-out,” he left the room, although he knew the physician had not so indicated.
By-and-by he returned, but only at her beckon, and remained at the bedside while Madame Zénobie led the Doctor into another room to write his prescription.
“Who are these people?” asked the physician, in an undertone, looking up at the quadroon, and pausing with the prescription half torn off.
She shrugged her large shoulders and smiled perplexedly.
“Mizzez—Reechin?” The tone was one of query rather than assertion. “Dey sesso,” she added.
She might nurse the lady like a mother, but she was not going to be responsible for the genuineness of a stranger’s name.