t. "What do you want to try it
for? I can't let the contagion spread all over the house, you know; how
would you get anything to eat? No, it's no use. She's got to go. I'm not
going to ruin my reputation as a doctor, and--"

Miss De Courcy smiled sweetly into the doctor's hard, common face. She
drew a purse from her pocket, and selected several bills from a roll
that made his small eyes light up greedily, and pressing the little
packet into his not too reluctant fingers, she remarked significantly,
as she sat down easily on the top of a low table:

"You're mistaken about what's the matter with her, doctor. She's got
the chicken-pox. You just look at her again as you go out, and you'll
see that I am right. But it's just as well to be careful. You might mail
a note for me when you go out, and my wash-woman will buy things for me,
and bring them up here to the door. I'll swear I won't go out till you
say I may, or till you take me to the hospital. And then, as you go
along, you can step into the front flat left, and tell her uncle she's
took bad with chicken-pox. He's got a lot of young ones, and he'll be
glad enough to let me do it, see? And of course, chicken-pox is quite
serious sometimes. I should expect to pay a doctor pretty well to bring
a patient out of it," she added, with a placid smile.

The doctor had turned, and was looking with deep interest at a chromo on
the wall.

"I'll take another look at her. I may have been mistaken, doctors
sometimes are--symptoms alike--and--m--m--you can get that letter ready
for me to mail."

Strange days and nights ensued. Druse had a dim knowledge of knocks at
the door at night, of curses and oaths muttered in the hall, of Miss De
Courcy's pleading whispers, of a final torrent of imprecations, and then
of a comparative lull; of days and nights so much alike in their fevered
dull monotony that one could not guess where one ended and another
began; of an occasional glimpse that melted into the general delirium,
of Miss De Courcy's face, white, with heavy, dark-ringed eyes, bending
over her, and of Miss De Courcy's voice, softened and changed, with
never a harsh note; of her hand always ready with cooling drink for the
blackened, dreadful mouth. Yes, in the first few days Druse was
conscious of this much, and of a vague knowledge that the rocking ship
on which she was sailing in scorching heat, that burnt the flesh from
the body, was Miss De Courcy's bed; and then complete dark