"A busy time for you, I see," Douglas replied, glancing toward the table. "Those pies look very tempting."
"Oh, yes, it makes me hustle all right to fill Empty. I often tell him he's well named, fer I never saw any one who eats as much as he does."
"All mothers say the same thing, don't they? Growing lads need plenty of food. It's better to pay the grocer than the doctor, isn't it?"'
Mrs. Dempster paused in her work and glanced toward the still form on the sofa.
"I guess she'll need the doctor before long, if I'm not much mistaken," she remarked in a low voice. "Poor child, she's had a hard time of it since she went to the city. Who'd a thought that bright an' happy Jean Benton would have come to this?"
"Is she very sick, do you think?" Douglas asked as he looked toward the sleeping woman.
Mrs. Dempster did not at once reply. She placed a pie in the oven, and then turned to her visitor.
"Guess we'd better step outside fer a minute," she suggested. "We kin talk freer in the open air."
"There, that's better," Mrs. Dempster panted as she closed the door behind her. "Ye kin never tell when sleeping people will wake an' make matters uncomfortable. Now, look here, sir, I want ye to do me a favour."
"All right," Douglas assented. "What is it?"