"I fear you are as much in need of rest and care as my cousin is," said Mona, when a fit of coughing interrupted his final directions to her at the door.
"I am fairly run off my feet," he said. "I have had a lot of night-work, and now this bout of frivolity has given me a crop of bronchial attacks and nervous headaches. I have got a friend to take my work for a fortnight, but he can't come for a week or ten days yet. I must just rub along somehow in the meantime. A good sharp frost would do us all good; this damp weather is perfectly killing."
As if in answer to his wish, the frost came that night with a will. In the morning Mona found a tropical forest on her window-panes; and in a moment up ran the curtains of the invisible. The shop and the dingy house fell into their true perspective, and she felt herself a sentient human being—dowered with the glorious privilege of living.
Rachel was no better, and as soon as Mona had made her patient and the room as neat and fresh as circumstances would allow, she set out to do the marketing. "Send Sally," Rachel said; but customers never came before ten, and Mona considered it the very acme of squalor to leave that part of the housekeeping to chance, in the shape of a thriftless, fusionless maid-of-all-work. She walked quickly through the sharp frosty air, and came in with a sprinkle of snow on her dark fluffy fur, and a face like a half-blown rose.
"The doctor has just gone up-stairs," whispered Sally, and Mona hastened up to find, not Dr Burns, but Dr Dudley. She was too much taken by surprise to conceal the pleasure she felt, and, much as Dudley had counted on this meeting, his brain well-nigh reeled under the exquisite unconscious flattery of her smile. It was a minute before he could control himself sufficiently to speak.
"I am afraid Dr Burns is ill," said Mona, as she took his hand.
"Yes, poor fellow! He is very much below par altogether, and he has taken a serious chill, which has settled on his lungs. I fear it will be some time before he is about again. A substitute will be here in a week, I hope; and in the meantime, nolens volens, I am thrust into the service. Thank you, Miss Simpson, that will do, I think." He took the thermometer to the light, and then gave Mona a few directions. "You have not got one of these things, I suppose?" he said.
"I never even had one in my hand," put in Rachel hastily.
"You know you can easily get one," added Mona severely.
"Oh, it's of no consequence. I think there is no doubt that this is only a feverish cold. I wish I had no more serious case. Go on with the mixture, but I should like Miss Simpson to take some quinine as well. I have no doubt she will be about again in a few days."