However, at this juncture, both Alison’s anxieties (in this direction) and her little gaieties received an interruption. The boy Danny fell dangerously ill, and all her pity and care went out to him. She was aroused one night to hear him moaning in the cot beside her, and she ran to waken Nancy. Both of them hung over the child, terrified to find that he knew neither of them, but wandered and cried in a high fever. The faithful Jean, roused, ran out into the windy, desolate streets at dawn to call a physician. Alison knew well that the child had ailed. She had urged it upon Nancy; but, of late, Nancy had cared so little: she seemed, more and more, to push everything from her but the one thing, and that, alas! was not her child. The boy suffered from a running sore or abscess on the hip. It troubled him always, and now, perhaps, some knock or hurt, had aggravated it. Alison shuddered to find it so inflamed—searing, like a live cinder, the delicate flesh. When Jean returned, she had secured no one but a callow student—a timid ignoramus, who either could not, or would not, lance the sore. He sent, however, a jar of leeches. Nancy screamed at the horrid things. But Alison took them in her fingers, without a qualm, and laid them on the child’s burning skin. They gave a temporary relief, and he fell into a troubled doze. ’Ally,’ said Nancy, an hour or two later, ’the child must have the best physician in the town. I have heard Archie talk of taking him to Mr. Ross, one of our first surgeons. Will you, like your own sweet self, go over to George Street, and tell my cousin he must bring the man here—beg him to do it—rather, without loss of time?’ ’I—go to Mr. Herries’s office?’ stammered Alison, overwhelmed with doubt. ’’Tis a savage morning, and I hate to send you, child,’ said Nancy, coaxingly. ’But Jean’s so busy, and I cannot—I _cannot_ leave the child. You hear how he calls for me every minute. Perhaps we could get a messenger....’ ’Nay,’ said Alison quietly, ’I’ll go, Nancy.’ It was not the weather that daunted her, but a new sensation—a womanly instinct that made her shrink from the idea of putting herself in Herries’s way. Supposing he should think her bold? But her strong common sense told her that most probably he would not think of her at all, one way or the other; and this, certainly, was no time to let herself be hindered in helpfulness by silly, unnecessary scruples. So she put on an old, rough cloak of Jean’s, wrapped a screen about her head, and cheerfully faced the storm. Half an hour later she stood in Herries’s warm, handsome room, her rosy cheeks bedewed with rain, and the drops sparkling on her curls. She told of Danny’s suffering, and gave the message, simply, quietly, in fewest words. ’Why, in conscience, does my cousin send you out on such a day?’ exclaimed Herries, in extreme irritation. ’Could she not put her servant on the job? It is preposterous!’