CHAPTER TWELFTH

A FAIR SUPPLIANT


Dr. Partridge lived at this time on the hill north of the village, and
not very far from the parsonage, which made it convenient for him to
report promptly to Parson West, when any of his patients had reached
that point where spiritual must be substituted for medical ministrations.
It was about ten o'clock by the silver dialed clock in the living room
of the doctor's house, when Prudence Fennell knocked at the open kitchen
door.

"What do you want, child?" said Mrs. Partridge, who was in the kitchen
trying to instruct a negro girl how to use her broom of twigs so as to
distribute the silver sand upon the floor in the complex wavy figures,
which were the pride of the housewife of that day.

"Please, marm, father's sick, and Mis Hamlin thinks he ought to have
the doctor."

"Your father and Mrs. Hamlin? Who is your father, pray?"

"I'm Prudence Fennell, marm, and father's George Fennell. He's one of
them that were fetched from Barrington jail yesterday, and he's sick.
He's at Mis Hamlin's, please marm."