"First-class, of course. I am so pleased your mother is going to see him."
"But I thought mother was suffering very much from weakness and want of appetite."
"So she is, poor dear, and I am inventing quite a new sort of soup, which is partly digested beforehand, that I think she will fancy."
"But I have been looking up Dr. Reade's name. He seems to be a great doctor for consumption and other diseases of the chest. There is no allusion to his extraordinary powers of treating people for indigestion."
"Well, my dear, consumptives suffer more than most folks from indigestion. Now, don't you worry your head; never meet troubles half-way. I am extremely pleased that your mother is to see Dr. Reade."
On the following morning mother herself told me that Dr. Reade was coming.
"It is most unnecessary," she said, "and I told Dr. Anderson so. I was only telling him yesterday that I thought his own visits need not be quite so frequent. He is such a dear, kind man, that I do not like to hurt his feelings; but really, Westenra, he charges me so little that it quite goes to my heart. And now we have not our old income, this very expensive consulting physician is not required. I told Dr. Anderson so, but he has made up his mind. He says there is no use in working in the dark, and that he believes I should be much stronger if I ate more."
Dr. Reade called in the course of the morning, and Dr. Anderson came with him. They stayed in mother's room for some little time, and then they both went out, and Jane Mullins had an interview with them first, and then she sent for me.
"Dr. Anderson wants to speak to you, Westenra," she said. She rushed past me as she spoke, and I could not catch sight of her face, so I went into her little sitting-room, where both the doctors were waiting for me, and closed the door behind me. I was not at all anxious. I quite believed that mother's ailment was simply want of appetite and weakness, and I had never heard of any one dying just from those causes.
"Let me introduce you to Dr. Reade," said Dr. Anderson.