“This makes the twelfth visit in six weeks,” said the nurse. “In busy harvest and threshing time, too. Do you know what that means?”
“To a certain extent. It is awfully good of them.”
“But she is shy, shy—and I think she is afraid of YOU. Her chief interest appears to be in the kitchen, which she has never failed to visit.”
The blood slowly rose in Cameron's face, from which the summer tan had all been bleached by his six weeks' fight with fever, but he made no reply to the brisk, sharp-eyed, sharp-minded little nurse.
“And I know she is dying to see you, and, indeed,” she chuckled, “it might do you good. She is truly wonderful.” And again the nurse laughed. “Don't you think you could bear a visit?” The smile broadened upon her face.
But unaware she had touched a sensitive spot in her patient, his Highland pride.
“I shall be more than pleased to have an opportunity to thank Miss Haley for her great kindness,” he replied with dignity.
“All right,” replied the nurse. “I shall bring her in. Now don't excite yourself. That fever is not so far away. And only a few minutes. When we farmers go calling—I am a farmer, remember, and know them well—when we go calling we take our knitting and spend the afternoon.”
In a few moments she returned with Mandy. The difference between the stout, red-faced, coarse-featured, obtrusively healthy country girl, heavy of foot and hand, slow of speech and awkward of manner, and the neat, quick, deft-fingered, bright-faced nurse was so marked that Cameron could hardly control the wave of pity that swept through his heart, for he could see that even Mandy herself was vividly aware of the contrast. In vain Cameron tried to put her at her ease. She simply sat and stared, now at the walls, now at the floor, refusing for a time to utter more than monosyllables, punctuated with giggles.
“I want to thank you for the eggs and cream. They are fine,” said Cameron heartily.