The wife of Poussette is, to my knowledge, the only person we can get
to sit here, administer drink and medicine, make him comfortable.
Well, not even she can do that but--you _comprenez_. And she is
capable, I know her well. She is as she is" (and the doctor made the
sign of the Cross), "yet she is worth ten saner women, for she has no
nerves, no fears, no imagination. Tell her what to do, place her here
to do it, and she will not fail; I have seen her a dozen times in the
village nursing sick women and their babies. She's as good as most
doctors and better than most nurses. Yes, yes, we will get madame to
him at once."

"But she may take it!"

"I think not. Her body like her mind is purged of all evil humours,
_mon ami_. She is already more than half spirit and waits in peace for
old age and quiet decay."

Ringfield got into the doctor's buggy in silent surprise.

"Besides, if she did take it, and it killed her, I cannot see any great
calamity. I will tell you her history. She was well educated at a
good convent near Montreal; her father was a doctor, as I am, but a far
cleverer one. Yes, I lift the _chapeau_ to that one, that old Dr.
Pacquette as regards the great art and science of medicine. But as a
father--ah! God pity him where he is now, according to our belief, in
purgatory for many long years to come. _Bien_! Dr. Pacquette had lost
his wife, and his daughter, a fairy thing, was allowed, even
encouraged, to grow up as she pleases. They have grand friends in
Montreal, her father's people still live on Rue St. Denis, great rich
people; if you go there, drive out over the mountain and you shall see
her old home, the Pacquette Chateau. Well, this Mme. Poussette when
she is a girl (Natalie-Elmire-Alexandre, I don't give you all her name)
she is very pretty, and the old doctor wish her to make a grand
marriage, and he has every one up to the house and make a big time for
them, and introduce her to all the young men, all the _rich_ young men.
But while she has been at that convent she has met with Amable
Poussette, who was not so stout then, had a good figure and a lively
tongue, and the end is, they are married at Ancien Lorette by a young
priest, who might have known better. Some months after, she goes home
to her father to be taken in and forgiven and nursed, for she has by
this time a young infant about six weeks old. Well, you can perhaps
imagine _le vieux_ Pacquette when it is all explaine