Weeks and months went by, and each week found Mercy better and brighter and stronger, until her tongue used to go like a mill clapper, and a continual stream of chatter overflowed from the Daisy Cot. One bright day Sister Theresa and the Doctor were in close consultation as they walked from the boys' ward to the girls'. "You see," the Sister was saying, "little Mercy is nearly well now; indeed, she ought to go into the country for change of air, and we really ought not to keep the cot from some other patient who may need to come in." "Humph!" said the Doctor. "That's true enough, and I quite agree; but where's the poor baby to go?" "Oh, I don't know;" and she looked very sorrowful. "That's just the trouble. There's no one to take her: and, poor wee pet, I don't want to sound as if I wanted to get rid of her. I don't know how we can bear to let her go; but--" "Humph!" growled the Doctor, very crossly; and he turned sharply on his heel, and entered the open door. The happy little voice was singing some nursery song, and Mercy was sitting bolt-upright in the cot, and watching with all her eyes and all her attention Sister Agnes, as she was filling the vases in the ward with violets. There had been a great basket of flowers sent to the hospital that very morning, and everybody was rejoicing over the lovely blossoms. "Why, Mousie," was the Doctor's greeting, "you're as bright as a young butterfly." "See! see!" and she held up a bunch of daisies, which had come among the other flowers, and had been voted, by universal consent to the Daisy Cot; "dey _is_ so pitty!" and then--no one knows how the happy thought struck her, but a quick gleam came into her merry face, and she put out her hands eagerly toward him. "Take dem to my lady," she said. For one moment the Doctor was too much surprised even to say "Humph!" Then, "By the bones of Æsculapius, I'll chance it!" was his remarkable reply, as he dropped the daisies into his great pocket, and crushing his hat down on his head, turned and bolted out of the hospital. He went through the streets at the same rapid rate, and never stopped until he rang the bell of a big house in a distant square. The sunshine was so bright that for the first moment after he was ushered into a shaded drawing-room he could see nothing at all, but stood blinking and winking like a great owl that had been awakened in broad daylight.