No More Learning

"We can give you good milk," said Mrs. Hauksbee to her, "and our house
is much nearer to the Doctor's than the hotel, and you won't feel as
though you were living in a hostile camp Where is the dear Mrs. Waddy?
She seemed to be a particular friend of yours. "

"They've all left me," said Mrs. Bent, bitterly. "Mrs. Waddy went first.
She said I ought to be ashamed of myself for introducing diseases there,
and I am sure it wasn't my fault that little Dora"--

"How nice! " cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. "The Waddy is an infectious disease
herself--'more quickly caught than the plague and the taker runs
presently mad. ' I lived next door to her at the Elysium, three years
ago. Now see, you won't give us the least trouble, and I've ornamented
all the house with sheets soaked in carbolic. It smells comforting,
doesn't it?
Remember I'm always in call, and my ayah's at your service
when yours goes to her meals and--and. . . if you cry I'll never forgive
you. "

Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention through the day
and the night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four hours, and
the house reeked with the smell of the Condy's Fluid, chlorine-water,
and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms--she
considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of
humanity--and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in
the sick-room than the half-distraught mother.

"I know nothing of illness," said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. "Only
tell me what to do, and I'll do it. "

"Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as
little to do with the nursing as you possibly can," said the Doctor;
"I'd turn her out of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she'd
die of anxiety. She is less than no good, and I depend on you and the
ayahs, remember. "

Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive
hollows under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses.