“F’r me to say from th’ missis, sorr, ’s how’s the kid’s hearty.”
A habit of a few days, for one morning there was silence, and Wipes’s head wobbled solemnly. Fitzhugh did not pay much attention. Wipes’s manner was not dramatic enough in its shading to convey a very instant impression.
“Kid all right?” asked the boy cheerfully.
“F’r me to say from th’ missis, sorr, as how’s the kid’s awful sick.”
Fitzhugh dropped his book on the floor, and the front legs of his chair came down with a crash.
“What the deuce do you mean, Wipes?”
“Croup, sorr. Crowed awful all last night. Throat’s all full up. Ain’t no better th’s mornin’.”
“Have you had a doctor?” asked Fitzhugh, with the solicitude of a fond parent.
And all that day as he went about his regulated succession of duties, the thought went with him like a weight of cold lead of little Marcus crowing mirthlessly on a sick-bed, and of Julia Duncan’s firm dictum: “If he falls ill and dies that’s your fault.”
He had an engagement to walk with the girl in the afternoon, and he kept the appointment with eagerness, but for the first time failed to forget everything else in the charm of her presence. There was an impressiveness about her manner.