Polly had to explain things to them; David always kept up with her
thought--there was the difference. And David, notwithstanding
his present proneness to discouragement, was a most winsome boy.

So the first day that she was not allowed to maker her customary
visit seemed a long day indeed, and eagerly she awaited the next
morning. But several days passed before she again saw David.
Then it was but for a very few minutes, and he was so wan and weak
that she went away feeling sorrowful and anxious. Yet Dr. Dudley
told her that she had done his patient good. That was a slight
comfort.

The next day, and the next, the lad was again too ill for company,
and a few sentences which Polly overheard filled her with
foreboding. She was putting fresh sheets on one of the cots--a
task which she had learned to do well--when she caught David's
name.

"His heart is very weak," one of the stairs nurses was saying to
Miss Price. "He can't stand many more such sinking spells. Dr.
Dudley has given orders to be called at once, day or night, if he
should have another."

Here the voice dropped, and Polly could not catch the words; but
she had heard enough. The sheet went on crookedly. Polly did not
know it, her eyes were so blurred with tears. She kept the sorry
news to herself, and all day long the children wondered what made
Polly so sober.

If she could have seen Dr. Dudley she would have asked him about