"Nothing great. But I wish you knew her. She's funny. Well, so we moved down-town again. Didn't cost much to move." She would smile a little in spite of him. "And then?" said he, stirring impatiently and leaning forward. "What then?" "Why, then I worked a little harder than I thought,--pulling trunks around and so on,--and I had this third attack." The Doctor straightened himself up, folded his arms, and muttered:-- "Oh!--oh! _Why_ wasn't I instantly sent for?" The tears were in her eyes again, but-- "Doctor," she answered, with her odd little argumentative smile, "how could we? We had nothing to pay with. It wouldn't have been just." "Just!" exclaimed the physician, angrily. "Doctor," said the invalid, and looked at him. "Oh--all right!" She made no answer but to look at him still more pleadingly. "Wouldn't it have been just as fair to let me be generous, madam?" His faint smile was bitter. "For once? Simply for once?" "We couldn't make that proposition, could we, Doctor?" He was checkmated. "Mrs. Richling," he said suddenly, clasping the back of his chair as if about to rise, "tell me,--did you or your husband act this way for anything I've ever said or done?" "No, Doctor! no, no; never! But"-- "But kindness should seek--not be sought," said the physician, starting up. "No, Doctor, we didn't look on it so. Of course we didn't. If there's any fault it's all mine. For it was my own proposition to John, that as we _had_ to seek charity we should just be honest and open about it. I said, 'John, as I need the best attention, and as that can be offered free only in the hospital, why, to the hospital I ought to go.'" She lay still, and the Doctor pondered. Presently he said:-- "And Mr. Richling--I suppose he looks for work all the time?" "From daylight to dark!" "Well, the water is passing off. He'll be along by and by to see you, no doubt. Tell him to call, first thing to-morrow morning, at my office." And with that the Doctor went off in his wet boots, committed a series of indiscretions, reached home, and fell ill. In the wanderings of fever he talked of the Richlings, and in lucid moments inquired for them. "Yes, yes," answered the sick Doctor's physician, "they're attended to. Yes, all their wants are supplied. Just dismiss them from your mind." In the eyes of this physician the Doctor's life was invaluable, and these patients, or pensioners, an unknown and, most likely, an inconsiderable quantity; two sparrows, as it were, worth a farthing. But the sick man lay thinking. He frowned. "I wish they would go home." "I have sent them." "You have? Home to Milwaukee?" "Yes." "Thank God!" He soon began to mend. Yet it was weeks before he could leave the house. When one day he reentered the hospital, still pale and faint, he was prompt to express to the Mother-Superior the comfort he had felt in his sickness to know that his brother physician had sent those Richlings to their kindred.