She covered her face with her hands, with a little cry of protest, as the blessed sun streamed in; but the Doctor never left things half done; so up went another blind, and the window-sash too, before he came over and stood beside her, looking down at her with a compassionate expression that would have surprised more than one lady if she had seen it on "that old bear's" face.
"Oh, Doctor, how could you?" murmured Mrs. Braithwaite, reproachfully. "It is so bright."
"Well, madam," said the eccentric Doctor, "the world is bright. I can't help it, as I didn't make it; but as it was made so, I suppose it wasn't meant to be wasted;" which made the lady smile, though it was a smile that soon faded.
Then came a little professional talk, and feeling of pulse, over which the Doctor looked grave.
"I'll tell you what it is, madam," he said at length, "you're out of tone and tune. You just go on getting weaker and weaker, and if you don't mind, you'll die from sheer indifference."
"I wish I could," she answered, with a sigh. "Oh no, I didn't mean to be so wicked. I know we must live; but, oh dear! life is so empty!"
"My patience, madam! do you find it so? I always thought it overcrowded," was on the tip of the Doctor's tongue; but he stopped himself, and said, instead, quite gently, "Life's pretty much what we make it ourselves, I fancy."
"And how is the hospital? how is the cot?" asked Mrs. Braithwaite, willing to change the subject.
"Oh, going on all right. By-the-way, I'd like you to see the last young one in it. A small monkey that's won all our hearts somehow. And I'm rather bothered about her just now. She's well enough to go out, but not quite well yet either; and the plague is, what's to be done with her. Her parents were respectable people—artists, or such like—but they're both dead, and she hasn't kith nor kin. Where's she to go?"
A sudden stiffness came over Mrs. Braithwaite. "I dare say she can go to an orphan asylum," she said; "I think I can get her into one."