The surgeon disregarded the smile of the ladies, and pursued his inquiries.
“It is doubtless wise to be prepared for death. But under whose care was the sick man during his indisposition?”
“Under mine,” answered Katy, with an air of a little importance. “And care thrown away I may well call it; for Harvey is quite too despisable to be any sort of compensation at present.”
The mutual ignorance of each other’s meaning made very little interruption to the dialogue, for both took a good deal for granted, and Sitgreaves pursued the subject.
“And how did you treat him?”
“Kindly, you may be certain,” said Katy, rather tartly.
“The doctor means medically, madam,” observed Captain Lawton, with a face that would have honored the funeral of the deceased.
“I doctored him mostly with yarbs,” said the housekeeper, smiling, as if conscious of error.
“With simples,” returned the surgeon. “They are safer in the hands of the unlettered than more powerful remedies; but why had you no regular attendant?”
“I’m sure Harvey has suffered enough already from having so much concerns with the rig’lars,” replied the housekeeper. “He has lost his all, and made himself a vagabond through the land; and I have reason to rue the day I ever crossed the threshold of his house.”