Sara followed him outside of the door, unmindful of the sweeping gusts
of wind, and his admonitions to stay indoors or she too would be ill.
"Yes, doctor, but just a moment; what is it?"
"Pneumonia."
"Oh! and is she very sick?"
"Well, you look after her just as I tell you, and, God willing, we'll
pull her through. Now go in and dry yourself quick! I don't want two
patients in one house."
He pushed her in, shut the door behind her with a bang, and was gone.
The memory of the next three days was always like a troubled dream to
Sara,--one of those frightful dreams in which one is laboring to go
somewhere, to do something, without success. Work as she would, day and
night, assisted by the kindly neighbors and the frightened children, she
could not stay the progress of that fatal disease; and on the fourth it
terminated in the going out of that life which, with all its faults, had
been kindly in impulse at least.
As Sara bent over her mother at the last, trying to win a word, a look,
the closed lids were raised a moment, and the dying woman said feebly,
"Sairay, you've--allus--been good! Don't leave--the baby. There's--the--
money;" and, unable to finish, her voice ceased, her tired lids closed
for their last, long sleep.
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