Doctor Harris, a comparatively young man, was cheerful and reassuring.  “There will probably be no recurrence of the convulsions,” he said, examining the child, who was sleeping tranquilly in the young girl’s arms; “but what was the exciting cause? what has he been eating?”

“I find him with a grand heap of the raisins and the nuts,” replied the French tutor excitedly.  “Madame goes to town this morning and takes la bonne pour s’en servir—­le pauvre enfant est abandonne, voila tout!” Gesticulating with much vehemence, he sat down at the conclusion as if exhausted by his efforts.

“What has been done for the child?” asked the physician in a cautious whisper.

The little Frenchman rose; his eyes flashed; he waved his fat, short arms toward Miss Featherstone:  “Cette chere mademoiselle, she is one angel from the sky:  she do it all,” with increased animation and violence—­“ice for his head, hot water for his feet.  I could not tink, I was so *_accable_”

This vehement declamation not being calculated to ensure the patient’s slumbers, Doctor Harris ordered the little fellow to be undressed and put to bed immediately.  “I should like to see you, my dear young lady, when you are at leisure,” he said as Miss Featherstone rose, still with the child in her arms, and was following the maid to the nursery:  “I have directions to leave in case of a recurrence.  However, I don’t think there will be any return of the convulsions,” he added.

The maid, reduced to helplessness by terror, looked on while Miss Featherstone undressed the sleeping boy.  She laid him in the bed, ordered the servant to sit by his side until her return, put the candle on the floor so that it would not shine in his face, and went out to meet the doctor.

“Who will be with the child during the night?” was his first query.

“Helas! I do not know,” cried the foreigner with a gesture of despair.

“If there is no one else to take care of him I will,” replied the young girl cheerfully.

“It is infame!” said the tutor.—­“Cette chere mademoiselle has but arrived:  she is weary.  Parbleu! she must be hungry.  Why not somebody tink of dis?—­My dear mees, have you had dinner?  Non?  J’en etais sur,” with a groan.

Mr. Brown—­for that was the tutor’s very English name—­was so dramatic in the expression of his good feeling that Miss Featherstone could not repress a smile as she turned to the physician, and, taking out her pencil and a little memorandum-book, said, “If you’ll give me directions, Doctor Harris, I think that I’m perfectly competent to take care of the child.”

Doctor Harris, who was gallant and a bachelor, made a whispered remonstrance referring to her fatigue, but she replied gravely, “I am in perfect health, and it never makes me ill to sit up with a sick person:  I have had experience.”  Some painful remembrance evidently agitated her, for her voice suddenly failed.