It smells comforting, doesn't it? Remember I'm always in
call, and my ayah's at your service when yours goes to her meals and--and...
if you cry I'll never forgive you."
Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention through the day and the
night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four hours, and the house reeked
with the smell of the Condy's Fluid, chlorine-water, and carbolic acid washes.
Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms--she considered that she had made
sufficient concessions in the cause of humanity--and Mrs. Hauksbee was more
esteemed by the Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the half-distraught
mother.
"I know nothing of illness," said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. "Only tell me
what to do, and I'll do it."
"Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as little to
do with the nursing as you possibly can," said the Doctor; "I'd turn her out
of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she'd die of anxiety. She is
less than no good, and I depend on you and the ayahs, remember."
Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive hollows
under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs. Bent clung to her
with more than childlike faith.
"I know you'll, make Dora well, won't you?" she said at least twenty times a
day; and twenty times a day Mrs.
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