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. Mrs.
Bent clung to her with more than childlike faith.
'I know you'll make Dora well, won't you?' she said at least twenty
times a day; and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee answered
valiantly, 'Of course I will.
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