‘Make somebody happier!’ he repeated; ‘well, it is easy enough to do that.’
‘How?’ asked Kate.
‘Help them,’ answered Dr. Layard; ‘a little help is worth a deal of pity. Helping people is a good step towards making them and yourself happy.’
‘That is what I want to do,’ said Kate, eagerly. ‘I want you to manage so that I can have some of your poor patients to tea here, in the large kitchen, on Christmas Day; it would make them a little bit happier, I think. I don’t know that it would do much good, but they would enjoy it, wouldn’t they, father?’
‘It would do them good, Kate,’ said Dr. Layard; ‘making people happy sometimes goes before making them good. In the hospital at times we make our patients as happy as they can be before the sharp operation; sometimes the sharp operation has to come first. We’ll try the merry Christmas for them this year, and then you must do what you can for them afterwards.’
Aunt Brooks, somewhat unexpectedly, gave a very gracious assent to Dr. Layard’s proposal, on condition that Kate took all the trouble of preparing for the guests, and entertaining them when they came. It made her busy enough for two or three days, and she tried to throw all her sad heart into it.
‘Kate,’ said Dr. Layard, on Christmas Eve, ‘we have forgotten one of our old favourites, who has not been here for months. You recollect old Mrs. Duffy, who used to go about with a basket of bobbins and tapes? Of all my poor patients, she ought to be present at your soirée.’
Dr. Layard persisted in calling the intended tea-party Kate’s soirée, and had taken an unusual interest in it. She was feeling more sorrowful than ever, this Christmas Eve, when everybody seemed so absurdly gay. She was wearing her dowdiest dress; and she found it difficult to get up a smile when her father spoke of the soirée. How different it would have been if Philip Carey had been true to her!
‘Can I find Mrs. Duffy this evening?’ she asked, willing to escape from her sad thoughts for a little time.
‘Easily,’ said Dr. Layard; ‘she lives in Wright’s Court, out of New Street, the last house but two on your left hand, I think. Anybody would tell you where it is. If you are frightened, take Bob with you.’