"I wouldn't mind if it were an attic, Uncle. I should much rather live in an attic all my life than have any harm come to the babies."
"I am sure you would, pet. Now, I shall send Debby to dust and air the room, and you may lie on the couch in my room while Tom and I carry up your bed."
In less than a half hour, the little patient was comfortably settled in the "hospital," as the Doctor playfully called his old den. He had the next room fitted up for the nurse; but as she could not come before morning, he occupied it himself that night.
It was a great surprise to the little girl when, just after breakfast the next day, he ushered the nurse into the room. Mary had expected a white-gowned, white-capped young lady—not a smiling, rosy-cheeked, little Sister, wearing a big white apron over her black habit and a long, pale blue veil.
"You wear our Blessed Mother's colors, too; don't you, Sister?" was Mary's first remark after she and Sister Julia had been introduced.
"Oh, by the way, Sister," the Doctor paused in the doorway, "there is one thing of great importance which I must ask you to remember, please. Any colors but blue and white have a very bad effect on this patient—yellow in particular. Please see that she closes her eyes while you give her the medicine and, above all, orange-ade. A few drops of wash-bluing in the water might help matters," and he was gone before Mary could say a word.
The little girl soon learned to love her nurse very much; and, though she sorely missed her mother, Sister Julia's beautiful stories kept her from becoming too lonely.
"No wonder your little patients love to have Sister Julia take care of them, Uncle," she said that evening when he came up to sit with her while the nurse went to her dinner. "I could lie here all day and listen to her stories—true stories about our Lord and Blessed Mother and the Saints, and about children she has taken care of—some of them so poor that they didn't have enough to eat or clothes to keep them warm. But Sister knows a good, kind doctor who took care of them while they were sick and gave them medicine and fruit all for nothing; and he told the Saint Vincent de Paul Society about them; so they are getting along better now.
"I am going to ask Mother not to buy that blue velvet coat and hat for me that she was looking at when we were down town last Saturday, but to give the money to some poor family instead. The white ones I had last winter are perfectly good, and Mother can have them dyed if she would like me to have blue things this year. They can dye white any color, you know. Hazel has a beautiful red dress trimmed with tiny, black velvet ribbon; and when I told her how pretty it is, she said that it is an old white tennis skirt of her mother's dyed. There is another thing that I would like to do; but I don't know—would you—do you mind what I do with that five dollar gold piece you gave me for my birthday, Uncle?"
"Do I mind, pet? Of course I do not mind! You are to do exactly what you please with that money. I gave it to you just to see what you would do with it. You have never handled any money of your own, except a few pennies."