Mrs. Maynard sprang from her lounge.  “Why, Bella! you worthless little wretch!” She caught her from Grace’s knee, and shook her violently.  Then, casting the culprit from her at random, she flung herself down again in a fit of coughing, while the child fled to Grace for consolation, and, wildly sobbing, buried her face in the lap of her injured friend.

“I don’t know what I shall do about that child!” cried Mrs. Maynard.  “She has George Maynard’s temper right over again.  I feel dreadfully, Grace!”

“Oh, never mind it,” said Grace, fondling the child, and half addressing it.  “I suppose Bella thought I had been unkind to her mother.”

“That’s just it!” exclaimed Louise.  “When you’ve been kindness itself!  Don’t I owe everything to you?  I should n’t be alive at this moment if it were not for your treatment.  Oh, Grace!” She began to cough again; the paroxysm increased in vehemence.  She caught her handkerchief from her lips; it was spotted with blood.  She sprang to her feet, and regarded it with impersonal sternness.  “Now,” she said, “I am sick, and I want a doctor!”

“A doctor,” Grace meekly echoed.

“Yes.  I can’t be trifled with any longer.  I want a man doctor!”

Grace had looked at the handkerchief.  “Very well,” she said, with coldness.  “I shall not stand in your way of calling another physician.  But if it will console you, I can tell you that the blood on your handkerchief means nothing worth speaking of.  Whom shall I send for?” she asked, turning to go out of the roam.  “I wish to be your friend still, and I will do anything I can to help you.”

“Oh, Grace Breen!  Is that the way you talk to me?” whimpered Mrs. Maynard.  “You know that I don’t mean to give you up.  I’m not a stone; I have some feeling.  I did n’t intend to dismiss you, but I thought perhaps you would like to have a consultation about it.  I should think it was time to have a consultation, should n’t you?  Of course, I’m not alarmed, but I know it’s getting serious, and I’m afraid that your medicine is n’t active enough.  That’s it; it’s perfectly good medicine, but it is n’t active.  They’ve all been saying that I ought to have something active.  Why not try the whiskey with the white-pine chips in it?  I’m sure it’s indicated.”  In her long course of medication she had picked up certain professional phrases, which she used with amusing seriousness.  “It would be active, at any rate.”

Grace did not reply.  As she stood smoothing the head of the little girl, who had followed her to the door, and now leaned against her, hiding her tearful face in Grace’s dress, she said, “I don’t know of any homoeopathic physician in this neighborhood.  I don’t believe there’s one nearer than Boston, and I should make myself ridiculous in calling one so far for a consultation.  But I’m quite willing you should call one, and I will send for you at once.”

“And wouldn’t you consult with him, after he came?”