“Seems's if the Lord meant 'em for baby's cheeks, don't it, Miss Hetty? they're so rosy.”
“Our poor little man's cheeks are not so pink yet,” said Hetty, and as she looked at the pearly pink bells nestling in their green leaves, she sighed, and wished that the baby did not look so pale. “But he'll be all right as soon as we can get him out of doors in the June sunshine,” she added, and turned from the dining-room into the hall, with the great basket of arbutus in her hand. As she turned, she gave a cry, and dropped her flowers: there sat Dr. Eben, in a big arm-chair, by the doorway. He sprang to pick up the flowers. Hetty looked at him without speaking. “I was waiting here to see you, Miss Gunn,” he said, as he gave back the flowers. “I am very sorry to be obliged to speak to you,”—here Hetty's eyes twinkled, and a slight, almost imperceptible, but very comic grimace passed over her face. She was thinking to herself, “Honest, that! I expect he is very sorry,”—“I am very sorry to have to speak to you about Mrs. Little,” he continued; “but I think it is my duty to tell you that she is sinking very fast.”
“What! Sally! what is the matter with her?” exclaimed Hetty. “Come right in here, doctor;” and she threw open the sitting-room door, and, leading him in, sank into the nearest chair, and said, like a little child:
“Oh, dear! what shall I do?”
Dr. Eben looked at her for a second, scrutinizingly.
This was not the sort of person he had expected to see in Miss Hetty Gunn. This was an impulsive, outspoken, loving woman, without a trace of any thing masculine about her, unless it were a certain something in the quality of her frankness, which was masculine rather than feminine; it was more purely objective than women's frankness is wont to be: this Dr. Eben thought out later; at present, he only thought: “Poor girl! I've got to hurt her sadly.”
“You don't mean that Sally's going to die, do you?” said Hetty, in a clear, unflinching tone.
“I am afraid she will, Miss Gunn,” replied Dr. Eben, “not immediately; perhaps not for some months: but there seems to be a general failure of all the vital forces. I cannot rouse her, body or soul.”
“Nonsense!” said Hetty. “If rousing is all she wants, surely we can rouse her somehow. Isn't there any thing wrong with her anywhere?”
Dr. Eben smiled in spite of himself at this off-hand, non-professional view of the case; but he answered, sadly: