“Hah!” said the tall Doctor, stamping harder. Stamp!—stamp! He shook his leg.—“Bah!” He stamped the other long, slender, wet foot and looked down at it, turning one side and then the other.—“F-fah!”—The first one again.—“Pshaw!“—The other.—Stamp!—stamp!—”Right—into it!—up to my ankles!” He looked around with a slight scowl at one man, who seemed taken with a sudden softening of the spine and knees, and who turned his back quickly and fell against another, who, also with his back turned, was leaning tremulously against a pillar.
But the object of mirth did not tarry. He went as he was to Mary’s room, and found her much better—as, indeed, he had done at every visit. He sat by her bed and listened to her story.
“Why, Doctor, you see, we did nicely for a while. John went on getting the same kind of work, and pleasing everybody, of course, and all he lacked was finding something permanent. Still, we passed through one month after another, and we really began to think the sun was coming out, so to speak.”
“Well, I thought so, too,” put in the Doctor. “I thought if it didn’t you’d let me know.”
“Why, no, Doctor, we couldn’t do that; you couldn’t be taking care of well people.”
“Well,” said the Doctor, dropping that point, “I suppose as the busy season began to wane that mode of livelihood, of course, disappeared.”
“Yes,”—a little one-sided smile,—“and so did our money. And then, of course,”—she slightly lifted and waved her hand.
“You had to live,” said Dr. Sevier, sincerely.
She smiled again, with abstracted eyes. “We thought we’d like to,” she said. “I didn’t mind the loss of the things so much,—except the little table we ate from. You remember that little round table, don’t you?”
The visitor had not the heart to say no. He nodded.