CHAPTER II
THE LADY IN THE GRAY CLOAK
"My dear girls!" the woman in the gray cloak said, with a hand on a shoulder of each of the younger Corner House girls, "how providential it was that you saw my danger. I am very much obliged to you. And how brave you both were!"
"Thank you, ma'am," said Tess, who seldom forgot her manners.
But Dot was greatly excited. "Oh, my!" she gasped, clinging tightly to the Alice-doll, and quite breathless. "My—my pulse did jump so!"
"Did it? You funny little thing," said the woman, half laughing and half crying. "What do you know about a pulse?"
"Oh, I know it's a muscle that bumps up and down, and the doctor feels it to see if you're better next time he comes," blurted out Dot, nothing loath to show what knowledge she thought she possessed.
"Oh, my dear!" cried the lady, laughing heartily now. And, dropping down upon the very bench where Tess and Dot had been sitting, she drew the two children to seats beside her. "Oh, my dear! I shall have to tell that to Dr. Forsyth."
"Oh!" ejaculated Tess, who was looking at the pink-cheeked lady with admiring eyes. "Oh! we know Dr. Forsyth. He is our doctor."
"Is he, indeed? And who are you?" responded the lady, the sad look on her face quite disappearing now that she talked so animatedly with the little Kenways.