“It may be; I dinna ken,” said the woman gravely.
They looked at Allison with a little surprise. She was surprised herself. She had no thought of speaking until the words were uttered. She was only conscious of being very sorry for them, and of longing to help them. But she had spoken many a word of comfort among them before her work there was done.
A little child with a face like a snowdrop came and looked up at her, touching her hand. Allison took her up in her arms, and carried her with her as she went on.
“Dinna be troublesome, Nannie,” said a voice from a distant bed.
“Come and see my mother,” said the child.
Her mother was a woman who had been badly burned by her clothes taking fire, while she was in a drunken sleep. She was recovering now, and her little girl was allowed to come and see her now and then.
“Ye can do naething for me,” she said as Allison set down the child beside her.
“No, I fear not, except that I might ease you a little, by shaking up your pillow and putting the blankets straight. Are ye in pain?”
“Ill enough. But it’s no’ the pain that troubles me. It’s the fear that I mayna get the use o’ my hand again.”
“Oh! I hope it mayna be so bad as that,” said Allison, shaking up the pillows and smoothing the woman’s rough hair, and tying her crumpled cap-strings under her chin. “What does the doctor say about it?”