"Your throat, too? O, my love!" cried Mrs. Pragoff, seeing a dreadful vision, with her mind's eye, of two cases of scarlet fever. She was a childless widow, and children puzzled as well as interested her. She did not know what to make of Dotty's confused statement that she "wasn't sick and wasn't well," but undressed and put her to bed as if she had been six months old, resolving to send for the doctor in the morning.
"What have you on your neck, precious? O, that rosary. It is one of my curiosities. Do you fancy it?"
"Here is the box in which it belongs. I give you the box and the beads, my charming dear, for a Christmas present and a consolation. See the card at the bottom of the box:—
"'Life is a rosary,
Strung with the beads of little deeds
Done humbly, Lord, as unto Thee.'
"I hope your life will be the most beautiful of rosaries, darling, and all your little deeds as lovely as these beads.
"And now, good night, and may the Christ-Child give you your dreams."
As soon as Dotty was alone, she covered her head with the bed-clothes, and made up faces. She wished she could push herself through the footboard, and come out at Portland. She never wished to set eyes on the city of New York again, or anybody that lived in it.