fellow, that has cost you a cow," persisted the wife. "I told you at the
time you would be sorry for it."

"I have not intimated that I am sorry I took the boy in," remarked the
doctor, not perversely, but with steadfast kindness. "If our own little boy
had lived, and had done this thing accidentally, would I have been sorry he
had ever been born? Or if little Ted had grown to be thirteen, and you and
I had died in the wilderness of poverty, leaving him to wander out of the
city to seek for a home in God's fair country, where his little peaked face
could fill out and grow rosy, as Harry's has, would you think it just to
have him sent away because he had made a boyish mistake? Of course you
would not, mother. Your heart is in the right place, even if it does get
covered up sometimes. And I guess, to come right down to it, you would not
send Harry away any more than I would, when the poor boy is almost
heart-broken over this unfortunate affair. Now, let us have supper, for I
must be off. We cannot neglect sick people for a poor, dying cow. Harry
will look after Brindle. He will not eat a bite, I am afraid, so it is no
use to call him in now. By and by you would better take a plate of
something out to him; but do not say a harsh word to the poor fellow, to
make it any harder for him than it is."

The doctor ate his supper hurriedly; for the sick cow had engaged every
moment of his spare hours that day, and he had postponed until his evening
round of visits a number of calls that were not pressing. When he came out
to his buggy, Harry Aldis stood at the horse's head, at the carriage steps
beside the driveway, his chin sunk on his breast, in an attitude of
hopeless misery.

"Keep up the treatment, Harry, and make her as easy as possible," said the
doctor as he stepped into his buggy.