“Me lights is floatin’, zur,” she answered.
“Your lights?”
“Ay, zur,” laying a hand on her chest. “They’re floatin’ wonderful high. I been tryin’ t’ kape un down; but, zur, ’tis no use, at all.”
With raised eyebrows the doctor turned to me. “What does she mean, Davy,” he inquired, “by her ‘lights’?”
“I’m not well knowin’,” said I; “but if ’tis what we calls ‘lights,’ ’tis what you calls ‘lungs.’”
The doctor turned sadly to the maid.
“I been takin’ shot, zur, t’ weight un down,” she went on; “but, zur, ’tis no use, at all. An’ Jim Butt’s my man,” she added, hurriedly, in a low voice. “I’m t’ be married to un when he comes up from the Narth. Does you think——”
She paused—in embarrassment, perhaps: for it may be that it was the great hope of this maid, as it is of all true women of our coast, to live to be the mother of sons.
“Go on,” the doctor quietly said.
“Oh, does you think, zur,” she said, clasping her hands, a sob in her voice, “that you can cure me—afore the fleet—gets home?”