"I had enough to do, what with looking after Jim and Polly," continues the homely woman. "What with keeping the place clean and sweet, and making the things the doctor ordered, and mending Jim's clothes, and getting his dinner and tea ready for him every morning before he went out; and what with him coming home dead-beat and worried with anxiety about Polly, I wonder how I ever got through with it. As for doctors, my blood curdles again when I see them looking so steady and cold at somebody that's a-dying before their very eyes. Our Polly had been abed nigh upon three weeks, when the doctor comes and looks at her and feels her pulse, and shakes his head. My eyes was never off his face for a second; and when I saw him shake his head, I turned so faint that I thought I should have dropped. He was going away without a word, when I stopped him in the passage. I tried to speak, but I couldn't, and I thought it was cruel of him to be so particular about buttoning his gloves, while I was in that state of agitation that I could hardly stand. 'Don't take on so, Mrs. Podmore,' he said; 'you've done your best, and that ought to be a consolation to you.' As if anything could have been a consolation to me! I asked him if he couldn't give me a bit of hope; but he shook his head again, and said, 'While there's life there's hope.' I knew what that meant, and I had to catch hold of the banisters to steady myself. Then I went and sat by Polly's bed, and began to cry. It seemed to me that she was gone from us already, and that home wasn't home any more. And I was frightened when I thought of Jim. His heart's bound up in Polly, you see, Mr. Wheels; they used to have quite a little play between them of a morning. She'd creep close to him in bed, and put her arms round his neck, and there they'd lay a-cuddling one another for half an hour before he had to get up. When he had had his breakfast and had kissed her a dozen times, and was out in the passage going to work, she'd call him back and make fun of him, and they'd laugh together that cheery like that it did my heart good to hear 'em. Sometimes she wouldn't call him, and he'd wait in the passage. She knew he was waiting, and she'd set up in bed, with a cunning little smile on her lips, and her head bent forward, and her pretty hand raised, listening. He knew what was going on inside that little head of hers, and he'd stamp his feet and pretend to go downstairs. Then she'd call out to him, 'Father, father!' and he'd say, 'Here I am, Pollypod!' and they'd have another romp together, until he said, 'Now I _must_ be off, Pollypod!' and away he'd run, waking half the people in the house with his clatter. I was always easy in my mind about Jim when he went away like that. I thought of all this after the doctor gave Polly up, and I was frightened. Jim was very late that night, and Lily was with me when he came home. 'How's my little Pollypod?' he said; but he didn't wait for an answer--he saw it in my face.