Chapter 15 Summary

While Mattie continues to convalesce, she hears many stories of the horrors caused by the fever epidemic. All around her, other patients die even as she continues to recover her health and strength. Mattie frets about her mother and often wonders what will become of her once she is discharged from Bush Hill. She becomes well enough to be moved from the hospital to an outlying recovery building. While she recovers her grandfather visits several times each day.

Finally, Mattie is discharged from the hospital. A hospital clerk suggests that the proper place for Mattie is the orphanage, as her mother is missing, but Mattie insists she be allowed to return to the coffeehouse. With her grandfather's support, Mattie convinces the clerk that she is not simply an orphaned child, and she is allowed to leave the hospital under her own care.

Chapter 15 Analysis