ary, where care, skill, and
nourishment would all be within easy reach. So it came to pass one
summer morning, as the sun lighted up the wide moors, and the hum
of the factories in the valley began to be carried upwards towards
the heights, a little crowd of folks gathered round the door of
Abraham Lord's cottage to take a farewell of 'th' little lass.'
About eight o'clock the doctor drove up, and in a few moments
Milly was carried in his and her father's strong arms and gently
laid in the cushioned carriage, and then slowly driven away from
the home which now for the first time in her life she was leaving.
The eyes of the onlookers were as moist as the dewy herbage on
which they stood, and many a voice trembled in the farewell given
in response to Milly's 'Good-bye.'
Throughout the whole of that dark day Milly's mother never left
the cottage; and when her husband, weary and dispirited, returned
at nightfall, she could scarcely nerve herself to question him
lest some word of his should add another stab to her already
sorely wounded heart. When ten o'clock struck, and Abraham Lord
laid his hand on the key to shoot the lock for the night, he burst
into tears, and turning to his wife, said: 'Never, my lass, wi'
Milly on th' wrong side'; and for months the parents slept with an
unbarred door.
* * * * *
'You have a remarkable patient in Milly Lord,' said Dr. Franks to
Nurse West one morning.
'I have indeed, doctor. I never met with another like her in all
my seven years' experience.'
'Does she talk much?'
'At times. But I should call her a silent child; at least, she
does not talk like other children. When she does talk it is to
make some quaint remark, or to ask some strange question.'
'Ah,' said the doctor, 'she's just asked me one. I referred her to
you and the chaplain. Religion, you know, is not much in my line.
But for all that, I must own it was a perplexing question.'
'Might I ask what it was, doctor?'
'Oh! she asked if I thought Jesus was sent here to suffer pain in
order that God might find out what pain was; and if so, was it not
queer that God should allow so much pain to exist. There now,
nurse, you have a problem. By the way, do you think the child
knows the limb has to be amputated?'
'She has guessed as much, doctor.'
'Does she seem to fear the operation?'
'Not at all. She talks as though it had to be. Do you think it
will be successful?'
Dr. Fran
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