Grace could not lift her head. She bowed it over the little girl whom she
had on her knee, and who was playing with the pin at her throat, in
apparent unconsciousness of all that was said. But she had really
followed it, with glimpses of intelligence, as children do, and now at
this negative accusal she lifted her hand, and suddenly struck Grace a
stinging blow on the cheek.

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!"