“I don’t think,” remarked Mrs. Forest, “that her illness would endure so long if Dr. Delano attended her.”
“Oh, ho! A reflection upon my professional skill,” said the doctor, wiping the creamy tea from his grizzly moustache; but he added, laughing, “If there is anything Mrs. Buzzell enjoys, it is a good long serious illness.”
“That is because you pet her so. I think she is a ridiculous old thing.”
“That is not kind, Fannie. I don’t see how you can speak so of a good old friend like that. We ought never to forget that she is somewhat enfeebled by age, and really has no one to care for her.”
“I don’t see that that is any reason why you should make a martyr of yourself.”
“Oh, I do not. It is pleasant to me to see her faded eyes light up when I enter the room. I know I am the medium of a great consolation to her; and giving happiness should make us happy always.”
“Really! You are quite tender to your interesting patient.”
“Fannie, you disgust me,” he said, setting his cup down emphatically. “If this infernal world chooses to be cruel and mean, to laugh at those who are pining for sympathy and love—you ought to be capable of better sentiments.” The doctor added a more vehement word.
“What! profanity? You do pain me so by your violent way of speaking,” complained the doctor’s wife.
“There!” said Leila, “papa is really getting cross;” and lancing a confident saucy look at her father, whose crossness had no terrors for her, she seized her gentler-willed sister and waltzed her out of the room to the accompaniment of “Good riddance, you sauce-box,” from the doctor, and a stately rebuke from Mrs. Forest. When they were alone, Mrs. Forest repeated in other words her last remark to the doctor, who answered—