"I'll be with your mother in about fifteen minutes," he said.
She ran all the way back, happy, to take the good news.
"He'll cure you, mama; he's a real, real doctor!" she said, breathlessly.
She quickly busied herself with her mother, washing her hands and face and arranging her hair, which was beautiful, black and silky; then she tidied up the "room," which only had the result of making it look emptier and poorer still.
She had not long to wait. Hearing the carriage in the road, she ran out to meet the doctor. As he was walking towards the house she pointed to the wagon.
"We live there in our wagon," she said.
He did not seem surprised; he was accustomed to the extreme poverty of his patients; but Perrine, who was looking at him, noticed that he frowned when he saw the sick woman lying on the mattress in the miserable cart.
"Put out your tongue and give me your hand," he said.
Those who pay forty or a hundred francs for a visit from a doctor have no idea of the brevity with which the poor people's cases are diagnosed. In less than a minute his examination was made.
"A case for the hospital," he said.