“There, that’s how she goes on all day and it fairly breaks my heart to see her,” said the mother, wiping away a tear with her apron. “If you’ll be so kind as to mind her a minute, miss, I’ll go and make a little lemonade. I’ve got a couple of oranges left, and she seems to like them best of anything.”
Jane’s heart was stirred, and, leaning down, she took the child in her arms. “Go and get the drink,” she said, “I will look after her till you come,” and she began to walk up and down the room rocking the little sufferer to and fro.
Presently she looked up to see Dr. Merchison standing in the doorway.
“Jane, you here!” he said.
“Yes, Ernest.”
He stepped towards her, and, before she could turn away or remonstrate, bent down and kissed her on the lips.
“You shouldn’t do that, dear,” she said, “it’s out of the bargain.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t,” he answered, “but I couldn’t help it. I said that I would keep clear of you, and if I have met you by accident it is not my fault. Come, let me have a look at that child.”
Taking the little girl upon his knee, he began to examine her, feeling her pulse and looking at her tongue. For a while he seemed puzzled, then Jane saw him take a little magnifying glass from his pocket and by the help of it search the skin of the patient’s forehead, especially just at the roots of the hair. After this he looked at the neck and wrists, then set the child down on the couch, waving Jane back when she advanced to take it, and asked the mother, who had just entered the room with the lemonade, two or three short, quick questions.
Next he turned to Jane and said—