that can be offered
free only in the hospital, why, to the hospital I ought to go.'"

She lay still, and the Doctor pondered. Presently he said:--

"And Mr. Richling--I suppose he looks for work all the time?"

"From daylight to dark!"

"Well, the water is passing off. He'll be along by and by to see you, no
doubt. Tell him to call, first thing to-morrow morning, at my office."
And with that the Doctor went off in his wet boots, committed a series
of indiscretions, reached home, and fell ill.

In the wanderings of fever he talked of the Richlings, and in lucid
moments inquired for them.

"Yes, yes," answered the sick Doctor's physician, "they're attended to.
Yes, all their wants are supplied. Just dismiss them from your mind." In
the eyes of this physician the Doctor's life was invaluable, and these
patients, or pensioners, an unknown and, most likely, an inconsiderable
quantity; two sparrows, as it were, worth a farthing. But the sick man
lay thinking. He frowned.

"I wish they would go home."

"I have sent them."

"You have? Home to Milwaukee?"

"Yes."

"Thank God!"

He soon began to mend. Yet it was weeks before he could leave the house.
When one day he reentered the hospital, still pale and faint, he was
prompt to express to the Mother-Superior the comfort he had felt in his
sickness to know that his brother physician had sent those Richlings to
their kindred.

The Sister shook her head. He saw the deception in an instant. As best
his strength would allow, he hurried to the keeper of the rolls. There
was the truth. Home? Yes,--to Prieur street,--discharged only one week
before. He drove quickly to his office.

"Narcisse, you will find that young Mr. Richling living in Prieur
street, somewhere between Conti and St. Louis. I don't know the house;
you'll have to find it. Tell him I'm in my office again, and to come and
see me."

Narcisse was no such fool as to say he knew the house. He would get the
praise of finding it quickly.

"I'll do my mose awduous, seh," he said, took down his coat, hung up his
jacket, put on his hat, and went straight to the house and knocked. Got
no answer. Knocked again, and a third time; but in vain. Went next door
and inquired of a pretty girl, who fell in love with him at a glance.

"Yes, but they had moved. She wasn't _jess ezac'ly_ sure where they
_had_ moved to, _unless-n_ it was in that little house yondeh between
St. Louis and Toulouse; and if they wasn't there