horse, whom the doctor was
slandering, with a slightly alarmed manner.

"Don't you think he'll stand, doctor?" she asked, uneasily.

"He likes to get home, like others of his tribe. Come;" and the
doctor held out his hand in a persistent way.

Mrs. Carleton looked at the poor tenements before which the doctor's
carriage had stopped with something of disgust and something of
apprehension.

"I can never go in there, doctor."

"Why not?"

"I might take some disease."

"Never fear. More likely to find a panacea there."

The last sentence was in an undertone.

Mrs. Carleton left the carriage, and crossing the pavement, entered
one of the houses, and passed up with the doctor to the second
story. To his light tap at a chamber door a woman's voice said,--

"Come in."

The door was pushed open, and the doctor and Mrs. Carleton went in.
The room was small, and furnished in the humblest manner, but the
air was pure, and everything looked clean and tidy. In a chair, with
a pillow pressed in at her back for a support, sat a pale, emaciated
woman, whose large, bright eyes looked up eagerly, and in a kind of
hopeful surprise, at so unexpected a visitor as the lady who came in
with the doctor. On her lap a baby was sleeping, as sweet, and pure,
and beautiful a baby as ever Mrs. Carleton had looked upon. The
first impulse of her true woman's heart, had she yielded to it,
would have prompted her to take it in her arms and cover it with
kisses.

The woman was too weak to rise from her chair, but she asked Mrs.
Carleton to be seated in a tone of lady-like self-possession that
did not escape the visitor's observation.

"How did you pass the night, Mrs. Leslie?" asked the doctor.

"About as usual," was answered, in a calm, patient way; and she even
smiled as she spoke.

"How about the pain through your side and shoulder?"

"It may have been a little easier."

"You slept?"

"Yes, sir."

"What of the night sweats?"

"I don't think they have diminished any."

The doctor beat his eyes to the floor, and sat in silence for some
time. The heart of Mrs. Carleton was opening towards--the baby and it
was a baby to make its way into any heart. She had forgotten her own
weakness--forgotten, in the presence of this wan and wasted mother,
with a sleeping cherub on her lap, all about her own invalid state.

"I will send you a new medicine," said the doctor, looking up; then
speaking to Mrs. Carleton, he added,--

"Will you