“Yes, dear, presently. He never fails.”
The girl closed her eyes again, and there was silence. The dim rays of
the lamp, falling upon the doctor, revealed the figure of a woman of
less than medium size, perhaps of the age of thirty or more, a plain
little body, you would have said, who paid the slightest possible
attention to her dress, and when she went about the city was not to be
distinguished from a working-woman. Her friends, indeed, said that she
had not the least care for her personal appearance, and unless she was
watched, she was sure to go out in her shabbiest gown and most battered
hat. She wore tonight a brown ulster and a nondescript black bonnet
drawn close down on her head and tied with black strings. In her lap
lay her leathern bag, which she usually carried under her arm, that
contained medicines, lint, bandages, smelling-salts, a vial of ammonia,
and so on; to her patients it was a sort of conjurer's bag, out of which
she could produce anything that an emergency called for.
Dr. Leigh was not in the least nervous or excited. Indeed, an artist
would not have painted her as a rapt angelic visitant to this abode of
poverty. This contact with poverty and coming death was quite in her
ordinary experience. It would never have occurred to her that she was
doing anything unusual, any more than it would have occurred to the
objects of her ministrations to overwhelm her with thanks. They trusted
her, that was all. They met her always with a pleasant recognition. She
belonged perhaps to their world. Perhaps they would have said that “Dr.
Leigh don't handsome much,” but their idea was that her face was good.
That was what anybody would have said who saw her tonight, “She has such
a good face;” the face of a woman who knew the world, and perhaps was
not very sanguine about it, had few illusions and few antipathies, but
accepted it, and tried in her humble way to alleviate its hardships,
without any consciousness of having a mission or making a sacrifice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account