THE SICK-A-BED LADY
but when he slept at last and woke again, the air was fresh and hopeful with a new day. He dressed quickly and hurried off to the scene of last night's tragedy, where he found the Old Housekeeper argu ing in the doorway with a small boy. She turned to the Doctor complacently. "He's begging for the postage stamp off the Japanese letter," she exclaimed, "and I'm just telling him I sent it to my Sister's boy in Montreal."
There was no slightest trace of self -consciousness in her manner, and the Young Doctor could not help but smile as he beckoned her into the house and shut the door.
Then, "Have you told her?" he asked eagerly.
The Old Housekeeper humped her shoulders against the door and folded her arms sumptuously. "No, I have n't told her," she said, "and I'm not going to. I don't dar'st! I help you out about your business same as I helped the Old Doctor out about his business. That's all right. That's as it should be. And I'll go skipping up those stairs to tell the little lady any highfaluting, pleasant yarn that you can invent, but I don't budge one single step to tell that poor, innocent, loony Lamb—the truth. It is n't ugliness, Doctor. I have n't got the strength, that's all!"
Just then the little silver bell tinkled, and the Doctor went heavily up the few steps that swung the
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