"Very well. I am sure you will be a blessing here; but a great deal of tact must be used. The position of affairs is extremely difficult."
"I will do my best," replied the nurse. The doctor gave her another look of complete satisfaction, and they entered the room where the little patient lay between life and death.
A small cot had been drawn almost into the center of the room, the blinds were down, there was a sense of desolation, and a heavy smell in the air.
"Who has shut these windows?" said the doctor in a voice of disapproval.
He went straight across the room, drew up one of the blinds, and opened the window two or three inches. A fresh current of air immediately improved the close atmosphere.
When he spoke, and when he and Nurse Fraser came into the room, a fair-haired young woman, who was on her knees by the side of the cot, started up suddenly, and gazed at them out of a pair of wide blue eyes. Her cheeks were deeply flushed, her lips were parched and dry.
"Oh, doctor," she said, staggering toward Dr. Staunton, "you have come back. What a blessing! She is asleep now; perhaps she is better."
The doctor went over and looked at the child. She was a little creature of not more than five years of age. In health she may have been pretty, she probably was; but now, the shadowy little face, the emaciated hands, the hot, dry, cracked lips, were the reverse of beautiful. They were all that was pathetic, however; and Dorothy's heart went straight out to the baby who lay there in such suffering and weakness.
The doctor looked at her, and gave a significant glance toward Mrs. Harvey.
Dorothy took her cue at once.