“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think about myself, I suppose I should rather die than lose her; but I don’t think of any thing but her. And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful as any princess, to live always in a little room back of a dolls’ hospital? Would it be right for me to want it?
“No; I think God gave her to make a few of my years bright; and when the time comes, she will go away to live her own life, and I shall live out mine, remembering that she was here, once; and harking back till I can hear the sound of her voice again; or looking till I see her bright head shine in the corner where she sits now.”
Just then the bell rang, and other customers came into the hospital, and I went away, promising to return for Bella on the morrow.
I walked through the streets with a sense that I had been talking with some one nobler than the rest of the world. Another than poor Sally might have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her, loved her; but who else would have been noble enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose her for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if but the little queen might come to her own again?
I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise of her “child’s” recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum or two in the afternoon, and dined out at night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of talk, I was comparing the most generous persons I had ever known with the poor dwarfed surgeon of the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.
I went for Bella about four the next afternoon. I wanted to get to the hospital late enough to see something of the little surgeon and her beautiful ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way, for I meant to please Sally by giving them to Lady Jane.
I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of the bell, the quaint little figure of the dwarf surgeon started up like Jack-in-the-box.
“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.
“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon took down pretty Bella, and proudly exhibited her. The white cement had done its work so perfectly that the slender neck showed no signs of ever having been broken.
I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said, “Here are some roses I brought for Lady Jane.”