looking him steadily in the face, essayed, but in vain, to answer
the question.

"Are you sick, my boy?" asked the doctor, with real and increasing
concern for the poor child.

"My feet hurt me so that I can hardly walk," replied Henry, whose
tongue at last obeyed his efforts to speak.

"And what ails your feet?" asked Doctor R--.

"They've been frosted, sir."

"Frosted, indeed! poor child! Well, what have you done for them?"

"Nothing--only I greased them sometimes at night; and to-day my
master made me stand in the snow."

"The cruel wretch!" muttered Doctor R--between his teeth. "But can't
you walk up as far as the drug store at the corner, and let me see
your feet?" continued the doctor.

"Yes, sir" replied the child, though he felt that to take another
step was almost impossible.

"You'll come right up, will you," urged the doctor.

"Yes, sir," returned Henry, in a low voice.

"Then I'll wait for you. But come along as quickly as you can;" and
so saying, the doctor drove off. But he could not help glancing
back, after he had gone on about the distance of half a square, for
his heart misgave him for not having taken the little fellow into
his carriage. He soon caught a glimpse of him on the sidewalk,
slowly and laboriously endeavoring to work his way along, but
evidently with extreme suffering. He at once gave directions to the
driver to turn back; and taking Henry into the carriage, hurried on
to the office. The child, when lifted in, sank back upon the seat,
pale and exhausted. Doctor R--asked him no question; and when the
carriage stopped, directed the driver to carry him in. He then, with
his own hands, carefully removed his shoes and stockings. "My poor,
poor child!" said he in pity and astonishment, on beholding the
condition of Henry's feet. The harsh remedy prescribed by Sharp, if
the subsequent treatment had been tender and judicious, might have
been salutary; but, after it, to confine the boy's feet in hard,
tight new shoes, and to send him out upon the street, was to induce
a high state of inflammation, and, in the advanced state of the
chilblains, to endanger mortification. Several of the large ulcerous
cracks, which were bleeding freely, the doctor dressed, and then,
cutting a number of short strips of adhesive plaster, he applied
them to the skin over the heel and foot, in various directions, so
as almost completely to cover every portion of the surface.

"How does that feel?" he asked,