Recalled to Life by Grant Allen
page 140 of 198 (70%)
page 140 of 198 (70%)
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with unsparing devotion. Elsie had a little bed made up in my room;
and Jack came to see me two or three times a day, and sat for whole hours with me. It was so nice he was a doctor! A doctor, you know, isn't a man--in some ways. And it soothed me so to have him sitting there with Elsie by my bedside. They were "Jack" and "Elsie" to me, to their faces, before three days were out; and I was plain "Una" to them: it sounded so sweet and sisterly. Elsie slipped it out the second morning as naturally as could be. "Una'd like a cup of tea, Jack;" then as red as fire all at once, she corrected herself, and added, "I mean, Miss Callingham." "Oh, do call me Una!" I cried; "it's so much nicer and more natural.... But how did you come to know my name was Una at all?" For she slipped it out as glibly as if she'd always called me so. "Why, everybody knows that." Elsie answered, amused. "The whole world speaks of you always as Una Callingham. You forget you're a celebrity. Doctors have read memoirs about you at Medical Congresses. You've been discussed in every paper in Europe and America." I paused and sighed. This was very humiliating. It was unpleasant to rank in the public mind somewhere between Constance Kent and Laura Bridgman. But I had to put up with it. "Very well," I said, with a deep breath, "if those I don't care for call me so behind my back, let me at least have the pleasure of |
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