England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical
Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know
if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for
Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you
will stay with me at the hospital--the Corn Exchange I mean--and save me
from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll
take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you.
Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by
ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?"
It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar,
over-ruled by her husband.
There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto
against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly
demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane
man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie
Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of
her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with
all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks
of herself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever
heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this
preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What
in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by
lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of
course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if
she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but
she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let
her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What
can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?"
It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at
Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of
yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place
simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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