Only an Incident

by Grace Denio Litchfield

"Will you not shake hands with me?"

Gerald turned as she was moving off and held out her hand, more as a queen might have extended it in motion of dismissal than as friend to friend. Denham took it between both his. "Before you go, I want to thank you in the name of all Miss Phebe's friends," he said, earnestly. "You have saved her life to-night, and at the risk of your own."

"The table-cloth was her savior, not I," returned Gerald, lightly, but with a softened voice. "And anyway, is it not quite thanks enough only to know that Phebe is safe? Now good-night in earnest."

CHAPTER IX.

JOPPA'S MINISTRATIONS TO THE SICK.

All news, good, bad, and indifferent, flies equally fast in Joppa; and had there been a town-crier deputed for the purpose, Phebe's accident could not have sooner become a household tale in even the most distant districts of the place. After a contradiction of the first rumor, reporting her burned to a crisp and only recognizable by a ring of her mother's on her left hand,—which ring by-the-way she never wore,—and after a contradiction in due course of the second rumor, reporting Gerald to be lying in the agonies of death and Phebe to have escaped without a hair singed, followed a period of dire uncertainty, when nobody knew what to believe, and felt only an obstinate conviction that everybody else had got it entirely wrong. But at last the story straightened itself out into something bearing a family resemblance to actual facts, and then Joppa settled itself resolutely down to doing its duty. My duty toward my sick neighbor in Joppa consists in calling twice a day, if not oftener, at his house; in inquiring after his condition down to minutest and most sacred details; in knowing accurately how many hours he slept last night, and what he ate for breakfast, and what is paid the sick-nurse, and if it includes her washing. My second duty toward my sick neighbor is to bring him something to eat, on the supposition that "outside things taste differently;" or something to look at; or, if nothing better, at least something to refuse. My third and last duty toward my neighbor,—the well neighbor who possesses the sick one,—is to narrate every somewhat similar case on record, with all its circumstances and the ultimate career of the sufferer; to prescribe remedies as infallible as the Pope; to disapprove wholly, and on the best grounds, of those in actual use; to offer every assistance in and out of my power; and to say at leaving that I hope it may all turn out well, but that I should have called in the other doctor. Joppa had learned by heart its duty toward its neighbor from its earliest, stammering infancy, and it adhered strictly to the path therein marked out. It inquired after Phebe diligently; it thoroughly mastered all possible intricacies of her case; it made her gifts digestible and indigestible; and it said that, by all odds, it was Dr. Harrison who should have attended her from the first. Dr. Dennis took very good care of her, nevertheless, and it was not long before he pronounced that all she needed was quiet and rest to complete the cure.

"We shall have her out of bed in a few days now, Mrs. Lane; in a week or so perhaps," he said, as he passed out at the front door where Mrs. Lane was standing talking with Mrs. Hardcastle. "She is doing very well, as well as I could wish. All she needs is rest. Keep her perfectly quiet." And the doctor bowed himself off, first politely inquiring of Mrs. Hardcastle after her husband's gout and her own dyspepsia.

"He is a fair-spoken man, certainly, very," said Mrs. Hardcastle, "though I won't say that I shouldn't prefer Dr. Harrison in the long run as surest to bring his patient through. I think I'll just go up with this myself to Phebe, Mrs. Lane. I suppose she's longing for visitors by now, poor soul!"

"Well, I dare say. You know her room,—just at the head of the stairs. Go right up, and I'll step out to market."

"Now, my dear," said Mrs. Hardcastle, rustling into Phebe's room, "I thought I would come up and have a look at you myself to make sure how you were. No, don't move. You do look pale, but that's all. Glad to see your pretty face isn't harmed. Why, I heard one whole side of it was about burned off. I've brought you some wine-jelly, my dear."