“No, it’s not likely; and even if she should, you will manage with some one for the other children. I am quite willing to trust my patients with this careful little person, since she is not afraid. The little fellow seems quite fond of her. I suppose you don’t mind being kept awake a little for one night?” he said, as he again stooped over the flushed face of the little boy.
“Oh, no! And even if I go to sleep, I wake very easily. The least movement wakes me. I think you can trust me, ma’am; and I can call you or Mrs Greenly at any moment, you know.”
“I have trusted her all the winter, as I have never been able to trust any one with the children before,” said Mrs Lee to the doctor. “Christie has been very good to the children, and to me too. I am only afraid I have put too much on her—such a child as she is.”
Christie’s face, which had been pale enough before, crimsoned all over with pleasure at the words of Mrs Lee.
“I am quite strong; at least, I am much stronger than I look,” she said.
“Well, you are to stay with little Harry to-night, at any rate, and I hope I may find him much better in the morning,” said the doctor.
He gave some further directions about the child’s drink and medicine, and went away. Christie heard him in the passage urging upon Mrs Lee the necessity of keeping herself quiet and taking rest. The child, he assured her, was in no danger; but he would not answer for the consequences to herself should she suffer her over-anxiety to bring on a return of the illness from which she had only just recovered. He did not leave her till he saw her resting on the sofa in her own room; and Christie did not see her again till the house had become quiet for the night. Mrs Greenly had paid one brief visit to the sick-room, and then, weary with the exertions of the week, betook herself to the attic-nursery to rest. Christie was left quite alone but her solitary musings were not so sad as they had been many a time. And sitting there in the dim light of the night-lamp, she said to herself, “I can never, never have such sad thoughts again.”