"No; it's not that, Mr. Philip. There's not many can stand hard work better than I can. It's not that as made me ill. I took something last night that disagreed with me."
"More fool you," said Mr. Sheldon curtly; "you ought to know better than to ill-use your digestive powers at your age. What was it? Hard cold meat and preternaturally green pickles, I suppose; or something of that kind."
"No, sir; it was only a drop of beef-tea that I made for poor Mr. Halliday. And that oughtn't to have disagreed with a baby, you know, sir."
"Oughtn't it?" cried the dentist disdainfully. "That's a little bit of vulgar ignorance, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose it was stuff that had been taken up to Mr. Halliday."
"Yes, Mr. Philip; you took it up with your own hands."
"Ah, to be sure; so I did. Very well, then, Mrs. Woolper, if you knew as much about atmospheric influences as I do, you'd know that food which has been standing for hours in the pestilential air of a fever-patient's room isn't fit for anybody to eat. The stuff made you sick, I suppose."
"Yes, sir; sick to my very heart," answered the Yorkshirewoman, with a strange mournfulness in her voice.
"Let that be a warning to you, then. Don't take anything more that comes down from the sick-room."
"I don't think there'll be any chance of my doing that long, sir."
"What do you mean?"