"My poor dear," said the nurse, touched, "I didn't know, you know, or I wouldn't. There! don't think about it now, but get up, like a good girl, and wash and dress yourself, and have your breakfast comfortable. Things won't be always like this, you know."
Mollie looked wistfully at her, but Mrs. Sharpe wasn't going to commit herself, with no certainty but that listening ears were at the door.
She assisted the poor prisoner with her toilet, combed out and curled the beautiful, abundant hair, and made her as pretty as a picture.
"She's lost her rosy cheeks, and is failed away to nothing," mused the nurse. "Only for that, she'd be the loveliest thing the sun shines on."
"And now you're fixed, my pretty dear," said Mrs. Sharpe, "I'll go down and get your breakfast. Nobody ever feels right in the morning on an empty stomach."
Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Sharpe found things in a lively state of preparation—coffee boiling, steak broiling, toast making, and muffins baking. Old Sally, in a state threatening spontaneous combustion, bent over the fire, and Mrs. Oleander, in her rocking-chair, superintended.
"Are you only getting up now?" asked the doctor's mother, suspiciously.
"Been up these two hours, ma'am," responded Mrs. Sharpe. "I tidied up myself and my room, and then tidied up Miss Dane and her'n. I came down to fetch up her breakfast."
"It's all ready," said Sally. "Fetch along your tray."
So Susan Sharpe fetched along her tray, and received a bountiful supply of coffee and toast, and steak and muffins.