'Ministers of grace defend me from the soft pleading of a woman's tongue!' exclaimed Dr. Heriot, impatiently, but he laughed too; 'you are a most troublesome patient, Miss Lambert; but I suppose you must have your way; but you must take the consequences of your own wilfulness.'
Mildred quietly seated herself.
'No, I am not wilful; I have no wish to disobey you,' she returned, in a low voice.
He drew near and questioned her face; evidently it dissatisfied him.
'If I do not let you go, you will only worry yourself the whole day, and your lungs are sound enough,' he continued, brusquely; but Mildred's strange unreasonableness tried him. 'Wrap yourself up well. Polly is going with me, but there is plenty of room for both. I will pay my visit, and leave you with Rachel for an hour, while I get rid of some of my other patients.'
Mildred lost no time in equipping herself, and though Dr. Heriot pretended to growl the greater part of the way, he could not help noticing how the wind—bleak and boisterous as it was—seemed to freshen his patient, and bring back the delicate colour to her cheeks.
'What a hardy north-country woman you have become,' he said, as he lifted her down from the phaeton, and they went up the path to the house.
'I feel changed already; thank you for giving me my way in this,' was the grateful answer.
When Dr. Heriot had taken his departure, she went up to the sickroom, and sat for a long time beside her old favourite, reading and praying with her, until Rachel had fallen into a doze.
'She will sleep maybe for an hour or two; she had a terrible night of pain,' whispered Mrs. Sowerby, 'and she will sleep all the sweeter for your reading to her. Poor thing! she was set on seeing her dear Miss Lambert, as she always calls you.'