“Oh, doctor, you aren't going to go away and leave us with a strange man as sick as he is?” asked Allbright's sister, hysterically. She shook so that she could scarcely speak.
“You won't have to worry half so much over a strange man as you would over one you know,” replied the doctor, jocosely, “and he is not very sick. He will be all right soon. Now you take some of your brother's medicine and go to bed, for I have six cases to visit to-night before I go home, and I don't want another.”
Allbright's sister bridled with an odd, inexplicable pride. She did not like to be a burden on her brother, nor make trouble, but there was a certain satisfaction in having the down-stairs woman, who, she had always suspected, rather made light of her ailments, hear for herself that she was undoubtedly delicate. Even the minor and apparently paradoxical pretensions of life are dear to their possessors in lieu of others.
“Very well. I suppose I've got to mind the doctor,” she replied, and even smiled foolishly and blushed.
The doctor turned to Allbright.
“I think he will be all right in the morning,” he said; “a bit light-headed, of course, but all right. However, don't let him go home before noon, on your life. I will look in in the morning before he goes.” And then he turned to Allbright's sister. “On second thought, I will let you make a good big bowl of that gruel of yours before you go to bed,” he said; “then he can take it in the course of the night if he is able; and beat him up some eggs in the morning.”
“I'll make the gruel if she ain't able,” said the down-stairs woman, in a tone vibrating between kindness and scorn.
“Thank you. I am quite able to make it,” said Allbright's sister, and she was full of small triumph and persistency. Yes, she would make the gruel, even if she was so very delicate that she ought to go at once to bed. It was quite evident that she thought that the down-stairs woman could not make gruel good enough for that man in there, anyway.
“Well, I guess I'll go,” said the down-stairs woman, “as long as I don't seem to be of any use. If there was anything I could do, I'd stay.” And she went.
“The idea of her coming up here and trying to find out what was going on!” Allbright's sister said to her brother as she was getting the meal ready for the gruel. “I never saw such a curious woman.”