"Oh, it does not hurt my clothes at all," Kate answered, as he glanced at her dress. "I have only my oldest clothes on to-day, and I've been in a very clean place, too. I'm sure nothing could be cleaner than the hospital."
"Well, you can turn it into fun, but you know what I mean," said Ben. For like many another young man, he felt that tenderly bred women should be kept ignorant of the unsightly parts of a city. Thus as they went up the hill Ben and Kate kept up their merry banter, until they reached Miss Theodora's door.
"Come in to tea with us. Ernest will be glad to see you," said the elder woman. But Ben shook his head.
"Thank you very much, but they expect me home."
Nevertheless, he went inside for a little while, and sat before the open fire in the little sitting-room,—Miss Theodora allowed herself this one extravagance,—and heard Kate humorously relate the adventures of the afternoon.
"I have brought," she said, "a bottle of old Mrs. Slawson's bitters. I feel guilty in not having any of the many diseases they are warranted to cure, but I shall give the bottle to our cook, who is always complaining, and keeps a dozen bottles sitting on the kitchen mantelpiece. You know about Mrs. Slawson, don't you, Ben?"
"Oh, she's the old person who made so much money out of a patent medicine."
"Yes, and then married a 'light-skinned darky,' as she called him, who ran away with it all. It is great fun to hear her tell of the large number of people she has cured. Why, the greatest ladies in Boston, she says, used to drive up in their carriages to patronize her."
"Why doesn't she keep up her business now?"
"Well, she is too old to continue it herself, and she does not wish any one else to have her formulas. She has just enough money to live on, and once in a while she has a few bottles put up to give away to her friends. My visits to her are purely social, not charitable, and this is my reward"—and Kate displayed a clumsy package in yellow wrappings.