“Yes. That’s what they tell me when I’ve pulled ’em out of trouble by the very scruff of their necks,” growled Dr. Forsyth. “Other times, when I am giving them bad tasting medicine, they call me anything but an angel,” and he laughed shortly.
“But now—in this case—she’s not a bad patient. She can’t help her nerves. They have gotten away from her. Out of control. She’s not fit to go back to her work—and won’t be for a couple of years.”
“Oh!” cried Ruth, with pain. She knew what such a thing meant to the two sisters at the hospital. It was really tragic. Mrs. Eland’s salary was small, and Miss Pepperill was not the person to wish to be a burden upon her sister. “The poor thing!” Ruth added.
“She ought to have a year—perhaps two—away from all bothersome things,” said Dr. Forsyth, preparing to go. “I’d like to have her go away, and her sister with her for a time, to some quiet place, and to a more invigorating climate. And that—well, we doctors can prescribe such medicine for our rich patients only,” and Dr. Forsyth went away, shaking his head.
Ruth said nothing to the other girls about this bad report upon Miss Pepperill’s condition. They all were interested in Mrs. Eland’s sister—more for Mrs. Eland’s sake, it must be confessed, than because of any sweetness of disposition that had ever been displayed by the red-haired school teacher.
The two women had lived very unhappy lives. Left orphans at an early age, they were separated, and Miss Pepperill was brought up by people who treated her none too kindly. She was trained as a teacher and had never married; whereas Mrs. Eland was widowed young, had become a nurse, and finally had come to be matron of the Milton Women’s and Children’s Hospital in the very town where her sister taught school.
The coming together of the sisters, after Miss Pepperill was knocked down by an automobile on the street, seemed quite a romance to the Corner House girls, and they had been vastly interested for some weeks in the affairs of the matron and the school teacher.
The little girls, Tess and Dot, were too much excited over what the eve of Christmas, and the day itself should bring forth, to be much disturbed by even Ruth’s grave face.
When they ate dinner that night, in the light of the candles, it seemed as though they ate in a fairy grotto. The big dining room was beautifully trimmed, the lights sparkled upon the newly polished silver and cut glass, a beautiful damask tablecloth was on the board, and the girls in their fresh frocks and ribbons were a delight to the eye.
Dot could not keep her eyes off the open fireplace. Branches of pine had now been set up in the yawning cavern of brick; but plenty of room had been left for the entrance of a Santa Claus of most excellent girth.