"Well," said Maggie, angrily, "I guess I earned my dollar as much as you. Where would his dinner be without me? That's always the way. The cook ain't seen, so she gets left out." "You ain't got left out this time, anyhow. He's a kind man; I've always said so. And she said she wasn't well enough to see him! Well; if it was me's I'd send for Dr. King." So the two women wrangled, each fearful of responsibility; until at last, after Maggie had twice gone up-stairs and listened at that silent door, they made up their minds. "David," Maggie said, "you go and wait at the gate, and when the butcher's cart comes along, you tell him you want on. An' you go down street, an' tell him you want off at Dr. King's. An' you ask Dr. King to come right along up here. Tell him Mrs. Richie's real sick." "If it was me, I'd let him wait till he goes to school," Sarah began to hesitate; "she'll be mad." But Maggie had started in and meant to see the matter through: "Let her be mad!" "Well, it's not my doin'," Sarah said with a fine carelessness, and crept up-stairs to listen again at Mrs. Richie's door. "Seemed like as if she was sort of--_cryin_'!" she told Maggie in an awed whisper when she came down. David brought his message to the doctor's belated breakfast table. William had been up nearly all night with a very sick patient, and Martha had been careful not to wake him in the morning. He pushed his plate back, as David repeated Maggie's words, and looked blankly at the table-cloth. "She's never really got over the shock about Sam Wright's Sam, has she?" Martha said. "Sometimes I almost think she was--" Mrs. King's expressive pantomime of eyebrows and lips meant "in love with him"--words not to be spoken before a child. "Nonsense!" said William King curtly. "No; I don't want any more breakfast, thank you, my dear. I'll go and hitch up." Martha followed him to the back door. "William, maybe she's lonely. I'm very tired, but perhaps I'd better go along with you, and cheer her up?" "Oh, no," he called back over his shoulder; "it isn't necessary." Then he added hastily, "but it's very kind in you, Martha, to think of it." "I'd just as lieves," she insisted flushing with pleasure. He tried to get his thoughts in order as he and Jinny climbed the hill. He knew what, sooner or later, he must say to Mrs. Richie, and he thought with relief, that if she were really ill, he could not say it that day. But the sight of David had brought his duty home to him. He had thought about it for days, and tried to see some way of escape; but every way was blocked by tradition or religion. Once he had said stumblingly to Dr. Lavendar, that it was wonderful how little harm came to a child from bad surroundings, and held his breath for the reply. "An innocent child in a bad home," said Dr. Lavendar cheerfully, "always makes me think of a water-lily growing out of the mud." "Yes!" said the doctor, "the mud doesn't hurt it."