night's fight for the life of Annie, the little
daughter of James Piper. A struggle where only two could join, the
doctor and the Widow McVeigh, as the infectious nature of the disease
forbade any assistance from without. Annie's illness had taken a very
serious turn just as the doctor arrived on his evening call. He
studied her case for a long ten minutes, and then he remarked to Nancy,
"It is the crisis." Nancy smiled, not that his words amused her, but
rather as an expression of her confidence in her powers to hold the
spark of life in the little body. From then until early dawn they
watched her, the life flickering like a spent torch in the wind. The
doctor had taken extreme measures to combat the disease, and his
greatest fear was that his efforts to cure might have a contrary effect
by reason of the frailty of the child. Once he despaired, but, looking
up, caught a momentary glint of steel in Nancy's eyes. His very fear
that she might detect his weakness compelled him to continue. For ten
hours she sat with the child on a pillow in her lap, apparently
impassive, yet conscious of the slightest change in the hot, gasping
breathing. Occasionally the doctor arose and passed into the room
where the others lay, to see that they were not suffering through lack
of attention. Returning from one of these silent visits, just as the
sun shot its first shafts of light under the window blind, he noted a
change in the little maid.

"She'll live," he declared.

"I've not been doubtin' the fact at all, at all," Nancy responded,
bravely trying to cover her weariness.

From that night both children began to mend rapidly, and more time was
left for the care of the elder patient. The case of Miss Sophia was
somewhat different. Her age made it a much more difficult problem to
unseat the poison from her system. It had committed sad ravages with
her constitution before she had given in, and though Dr. Dodona felt
reasonably certain that he could check the trouble, yet it seemed
doubtful if her strength would sustain the fight.

As the days passed he could see plainly that she was unimproved. His
professional training told him that, and he threw into the work all the
skill that he possessed. He suddenly became conscious that he had lost
some of the assurance in himself which had been the backbone of his
former successes, but it took him a short while to comprehend fully his
own incapacity. As he drove over the miles