“Good evening, ma’am.  I am Dr. Wentworth; and I came to see your little girl by request of Teddy here, who said you would like a doctor if you could have one without paying him.”

Mrs. Ginniss courtesied again, but with rather a wrathful look at Teddy, as she said,—­

“And it’s sorry I am the b’y should be afther beggin’ of yees, docther.  I thought he’d more sinse than to be axin’ yees to give away yer time, that’s as good as money to yees.”

“But my time is not as good as money by any means,” said Dr. Wentworth, laughing as he took off his hat and coat; “for I have very little to do except to attend patients who cannot give more than their thanks in payment.  That is the way we young doctors begin.”

“An’ is that so indade!  Sure an’ ’Meriky’s the place fur poor folks quite an’ intirely,” said Mrs. Ginniss admiringly.

“For some sorts of poor people, and not for others.  Unfortunately, bakers, butchers, and tailors do not practise gratuitously; so we poor doctors, lawyers, and parsons have to play give without take,” said the young man, warming his hands a moment over the cooking-stove.

“An’ sure it was out of a Protistint Bible that I heard wonst, ’Him as gives to the poor linds to the Lord:’  so, in the ind, it’s yees that’ll come in wid your pockets full, if ye belave yer own Scripter,” said Mrs. Ginniss shrewdly.

The young doctor gave her a sharp glance out of his merry brown eyes, but only answered, as he walked on to the bedside,—­

“You have it there, my friend.”

For several moments, there was silence in the little room while Dr. Wentworth felt his patient’s pulse, looked at her tongue, examined her eyes, and passed his hand over the burning skin.

“H’m!  Typhoid, without doubt,” said he to himself, and then to Mrs. Ginniss,—­

“Can you tell the probable cause of the child’s illness, ma’am?  Has she been exposed to any sudden chill, or any long-continued cold or fatigue?”

Mrs. Ginniss was about to reply by telling all she knew of the little stranger; but catching Teddy’s imploring look, and the gesture with which he seemed to beg her to keep the secret of his “little sister’s” sudden adoption, she only answered,—­

“Sure an’ it’s the cowld she took last night but one is workin’ in her.”

“She took cold night before last?  How was it?” pursued the doctor.

“She was out late in the street, sure, an’ the clothes she’d got wasn’t warm enough,” said the washwoman, her eyes still fixed on Teddy, who, from behind the doctor, was making every imploring gesture he could invent to prevent her from telling the whole truth.  The doctor did not fail to notice the hesitation and embarrassment of the woman’s manner, but remembering what Teddy had told him of his mother’s poverty, and her own little betrayal of pride when he first entered, naturally concluded that she was annoyed at having to say that the child had been sent into the street without proper clothing, and forbore to press the question.