Doctor Luttrell's First PatientCarey, Rosa Nouchette
General
Doctor Luttrell's First Patient
Carey, Rosa Nouchette
Fiction; Love stories
"No--Marcus said it was no case for a hospital, at least at present;
they would not have admitted him; indeed--indeed he could not have done
otherwise--I told him so at once. What is the use of going to church
and saying one's prayers if one shrinks from such a clear duty as that?
Why, we should never dare to read St. James again!"
"And why not, may I ask?"
"Because we should have set our faces against his teaching. Oh, you
know what I mean, Mr. Gaythorne," and Olivia repeated the text
reverently: "'If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily
food, and one of you say unto them go in peace, be ye clothed and fed,
and yet you give them not those things needful for the body, what doth
it profit?' Marcus does not only profess his religion. Oh"--finished
Olivia, with sparkling eyes--"I did feel so proud of my husband last
night."
"Well--well; if you choose to be Quixotic it is your own affair, not
mine," but Mr. Gaythorne spoke with less irritation. "Now shall we go
on with the portfolio, or do you want to go back to your gentlemanly
tramp?" Then Olivia begged to finish the pictures.
"I have nearly half an hour before Dot's bedtime," she said,
cheerfully, "and then I must go," and so harmony was restored.
When the half-hour had passed, Olivia took her leave, but before she
reached the door, Mr. Gaythorne called her back and thrust something
into her hand.
"That will help you to provide for your tramp," he said, hurriedly,
"and prevent him from eating you out of house and home. Mind you repay
yourself before you lay out any for him: do you suppose," in a cynical
tone, "that your husband's income will bear the expense of such an
inmate as that?" and Olivia, to her intense astonishment, found the two
crumpled bits of paper in her hand were five-pound notes.
"Oh there is no need for this," she said, in distress; "have you
forgotten the turkey and all those good things Aunt Madge sent us?" but
Mr. Gaythorne waved her away.
"Nonsense," he said, crossly; "do you suppose a trifle like that
matters to me? Why, I am not spending half my income; if you want any
more you can just let me know; but if you take my advice you will get
rid of that fellow as soon as possible."
Marcus smiled when Olivia showed him the money. "Put it away for the
present," he said, "it will buy Barton some warm clothes; we can afford
to give him his bit and sup for a few days; he is stone broke, as they
call it, and a few pounds may be just what he requires, and put him on
his feet again."
When Mrs. Broderick heard of the strange guest at No. 1, Galvaston
Terrace, she was deeply interested, and warmly commended Marcus's
philanthropy.
"I wonder," she said, thoughtfully, after a few minutes' silence,
"whether any of Fergus's things would fit him; you know what a foolish
body I have been, Livy, to keep them all this time, and it gives Deb so
much trouble to preserve them from moth; but there, we all have our
crazes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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