mean better than usual," he replied, with a faint attempt
at a smile. "No doubt you and Father Monies are satisfied, now you've
got me laid up."

"That depends upon your intentions."

"Oh, I intend to get up tomorrow."

"If you do, without other change in your intentions, I am going to report
you to the Organized Charity as a person who has no visible means of
support."

She had brought a bunch of violets, and as they talked she had filled a
glass with water and put them on a stand by the head of the bed. Then
--oh, quite professionally--she smoothed out his pillows and straightened
the bedclothes, and, talking all the time, and as if quite unconscious of
what she was doing, moved about the room, putting things to rights, and
saying, in answer to his protest, that perhaps she should lose her
reputation as a physician in his eyes by appearing to be a professional
nurse.

There was a timid knock at the door, and a forlorn little figure, clad in
a rumpled calico, with an old shawl over her head, half concealing an
eager and pretty face, stood in the doorway, and hesitatingly came in.

"Meine Mutter sent me to see how Father Damon is," she explained; "she
could not come, because she washes."

She had a bunch of flowers in her hand, and encouraged by the greeting of
the invalid, she came to the bedside and placed them in his outstretched
hand--a faded blossom of scarlet geranium, a bachelor's button, and a
sprig of parsley, probably begged of a street dealer as she came along.
"Some blooms," she said.

"Bless you, my dear," said Father Damon; "they are very pretty."

"Dey smells nice," the child exclaimed, her eyes dancing with pleasure at
the reception of her gift. She stood staring at him, and then, her eye
catching the violets, she added, "Dose is pooty, too."

"If you can stay half an hour or so, I should like to step round to the
chapel," Father Monies said to the doctor in the front room, taking up
his hat.

The doctor could stay. The little girl had moved a chair up to the
bedside, and sat quite silent, her grimy little hand grasped in the
father's. Ruth, saying that she hoped the father wouldn't mind, began to
put in order the front room, which the incidents of the night had
somewhat disturbed. Father Damon, holding fast by that little hand to
the world of poverty to which he had devoted his life, could not refrain
from watching her, as she moved about with the quick, noiseless way that
a woman has when