that, too; for _'ere's_ the Good Samaritan!"

She pointed at the building, and he stared. He could not comprehend at
all, but she had switched him off the current of his deadly fear.

"Now you just wait 'ere by the steps," she commanded, "an' 'Dolph'll
wait by you an' see you come to no 'arm. Understand, 'Dolph? I'm goin'
inside for a minute--only a minute, mind; but if anybody touches Arthur
Miles, you _pin_ 'im!"

'Dolph looked up at his mistress, then at the boy. He wagged his tail,
not enthusiastically. He would fain have followed her, but he
understood, and would obey.

Tilda went up the steps, and up the stairs. On the landing, as chance
would have it, she met the Second Nurse coming out from the ward, with a
sheet in one hand and a tray of medicines in the other.

"You extremely naughty child!" began the Second Nurse, but not in the
shrill tone nor with quite the stern disapproval the child had expected.
"When the doctor told you half an hour exactly, and you have been
_hours!_ What _have_ you been doing?"

"Lookin' up the old folks," she answered, and took note first that the
medicine bottles were those that had stood on the sick woman's table,
and next that the Second Nurse, as she came out, transferred the sheet
to her arm and closed the door behind her.

"You must wait here for a moment, now you have come so late. I have had
to give you another bed; and now I've to fetch some hot water, but I'll