"Yes, go, my dear boy," whispered Mrs. Keith.
"I will, since you bid me, darling mother," he answered, pressing his hot lips to her cheek, then tottering from the room.
She looked after him with sad, pitying eyes, "So sick, and your mother not able to nurse you! Mildred, my poor dear child, how are you to stand it?" she sighed, turning them upon her daughter's face as she bent over her.
"Try not to be troubled and anxious, my dear madam," said the doctor, "the more quiet and free from care you can keep your mind, the better for you. Trust the Lord that all will come out right."
"I will; he is all my hope and trust for myself and for my dear ones," she answered, with almost her accustomed cheerfulness. "Things look very dark but 'behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear.'"
"And he has sent us some help already," observed Mildred; "from a most unexpected quarter."
Damaris came in at that moment from the kitchen, saluted the doctor in her usual formal way, and turning to Mrs. Keith, remarked,
"I hope you're not going to be very sick; but you'd ought to go to bed for to-day, anyhow. Don't you say so, doctor?"
"I do most emphatically," answered the physician, who had seated himself at the table and was busied in measuring out medicines; "and I'm very glad, Miss Damaris, to see you here."
"It appeared to be my duty to come," she said, looking not ill-pleased; "I'm no great nurse, but I can do housework and cook for sick or well; and them things is as necessary as the nursing."