CHAPTER VII.

THE DOCTOR'S KINDNESS.

ABOUT this time a fever broke out in the neighborhood, and one of the families first attacked was Mrs. Ship's, where Milly's friends, Jack and Bob, still lived.

News of this was brought in by one of the servants, when Milly was in the kitchen one morning.

"Two of the children are very bad indeed," said the girl. "And the baker says they're so poor now, they can hardly get a living, so what they'll do with sickness in the house, I don't know."

"Poor things! It's a pity they can't get somebody to help them a bit," said the housekeeper. But she has no thought of giving them any help herself, although she might have done it, had she felt so disposed.

Milly stood at the table, eagerly listening to all that was said.

"Will Bob and Jack have the fever and be ill, do you think?" she asked, after a minute's pause.

"Very likely, child; there's no telling who will have it and who won't, and as it's in the house where they live, they'll be very likely to take it."

"And there 'll be nobody to help them, now their mother is dead," said Milly, speaking softly to herself.

She did not say any more, but walked slowly and thoughtfully up stairs and took out a book to spell over her lessons, as she had been accustomed to do. But somehow the sight of the old worn spelling book that Bob had bought as a present for her, brought back the old scenes so vividly to her mind that, at the recurrence of the thought that these two friends might be ill, with no one to take care of them, she burst into tears.

She was still crying when Dr. Mansfield came in from the garden. "What is the matter, Milly? What has happened, my darling?" he asked, lifting her upon his knee as he sat down.

For a minute or two Milly could only sob. But at length she said, "I think I shall have to go away from you soon."

"Go away from me?" repeated the doctor, clasping her in his arms as he spoke. "What do you mean, Milly?"

"I don't know, quite; but Bob told me I must be an angel, and help everybody, and I think he will want me to go and help him now."

"Help who? Bob, the fisher-boy?"

Milly nodded. "He'll want me soon, I think," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes and trying to look very brave.

"What for?" asked the doctor. "What can a little girl like you do for him?"

"I don't know. I'm going to try and do everything; that is, take care of him while he's ill. That would be helping him, wouldn't it?" she added.

"Yes, if you could do it. But is he ill?" asked the doctor, smiling.

"Not yet; but he's going to be. He'll have the fever, Mary says."

"O! It's what Mary says, is it?" said the doctor, kissing her. "Well, then, I don't think you need trouble your little head much about it. Tell me what you have been learning this morning," he added, by way of turning her thoughts to another subject.

But Milly was not to be put off so easily. "I can't learn my lesson this morning," she said. "I must think about Bob and Jack, and how I can help them."

"But it will be time enough to think about that when they are ill," said the doctor, again smiling.

"But Mrs. Ship's two little girls are ill now, and Mary said she wanted some one to help her. Do you think I could help a little bit?"

"What do you think you could do?" asked the doctor in an amused tone. He was unusually cheerful this morning, and loved to hear Milly talk.

"I think I could light the fire—I've seen Bob do it a good many times—and I could go after water. Mother said that I helped her when I brought the water for her. I learned to wash cups and saucers before I came here, and I could do that."

"But I'm afraid this wouldn't help these poor people much," said the doctor, speaking more seriously. "If Mary said they wanted help, she meant help of a different sort from what a little girl can give."

Milly looked disappointed. "I wish I wasn't a little girl, then," she said. "Little girls don't seem to be any good in the world, if they can't help when people are ill."

The doctor drew her closer to him. "Don't say that, my darling. Little girls do not know how much good they may do in the world."

"What good," asked Milly, curiously, "if they can't help people when they are ill?"

"What makes you so anxious about this?" asked the doctor.

"I want to help Bob and Jack, and then—then, you know, that would be like Jesus—who went about helping everybody He could."

"Like Jesus?" repeated the doctor, musingly. "I dare not hope ever to be like Him; but if I could help these poor people a bit, would it not please Him? And if I could do that, it would be worth something—worth living for."

This was said more to himself than to Milly; and as he spoke he put her off his knee, and turned to a medicine-chest that stood in the room, and began looking over its contents.

"I think I will go down and see these children myself," he said, as he placed two or three bottles in his pocket. "Perhaps I may be able to save the boys from having the fever at all," he added as he left the room.

Milly ran after him before he reached the street-door. "Let me go with you," she said. "Do let me go and see Bob. I haven't seen him for a long time."

But the doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid you would catch this fever, and be ill too," he said.

But Milly pleaded so hard to be allowed to accompany him part of the way, that the doctor yielded the point at last. And it was well he did, or otherwise he might not have gained so ready an admission into the cottage.

Mrs. Ship was at the window, and saw the two coming across the green together, Milly holding the doctor's hand, and skipping and laughing as she trotted at his side.

"Well, to be sure, there must be a change in that Dr. Mansfield, for a child to be no more afraid of him than that little Milly is," she said to Bob, who happened to enter the room at that moment to inquire after the children who were ill.

"I've heard before that the doctor is almost cured of his madness, somehow," said Bob.

"Well, cured or not, I shouldn't care to see him come into my house if I hadn't seen him with that child. I wonder where they are going," she added the next minute, as she saw the doctor stoop and kiss the little girl. "He's going to leave her to play on the green, I do believe, while he goes on by himself."

The doctor had quickened his pace now, and was rapidly approaching the cottage.

"I do believe he's coming here," said Mrs. Ship. "Bob, go and see what he wants, and tell him we've got the fever, so that he may not come inside the door. I dare say he's coming to see you about something."

Bob went outside to meet the doctor, but returned in a minute or two. "He's come to see the children, Mrs. Ship," he said hurriedly, scarce able to get the words out for astonishment.

Poor Mrs. Ship scarcely knew whether she stood on her head or on her feet, as the tall form of the doctor appeared in the doorway.

She curtsied and stammered out something about the "poor place."

But the doctor told her, shortly, he had not come to see the place, but the children, and almost before she was aware of it, Mrs. Ship had asked him to walk into the adjoining room, where the children were lying.

Sharp and gruff as his manner had been towards the mother, nothing could exceed the gentleness with which he now spoke to the children. They were moaning restlessly in a half delirious state, and did not recognize him, or they might have taken fright at seeing the "mad doctor" so near them.

After leaving some general directions for their treatment with the medicine he had brought in his pocket, he told Mrs. Ship to send one of the boys to his house for some arrow-root and barley-water, which he would have prepared for them, and then, before a word of thanks could be uttered, he was gone.

This was his first errand of mercy, but it was not the last. The day following, when he called at the cottage, he ventured to ask in a shy manner, as though he were half ashamed of the kindness he was showing, whether the fever was spreading in the village, and whether there were any other families that needed help and medical assistance.

"O, yes, indeed it is, doctor," said Mrs. Ship, sadly; "and what 'll become of some of the poor things I don't know, for the fishing has been so bad this year that we don't know how to make ends meet as it is."

In the selfish, secluded life the doctor had led, he had heard nothing of this, although living in the midst of the general distress. But it accounted in some measure for the great prevalence of the fever, and he determined to do what he could to help the poor people, not only with medical advice, but what was equally necessary, the means of obtaining suitable nourishing food.

For several months the doctor had no time to indulge his gloomy melancholy. His visits, which were at first received shyly and somewhat suspiciously by the villagers, soon came to be hailed with pleasure, in spite of the sad countenance he always carried with him; for sad and unhappy he still was, as could be plainly seen, although the worst features of his melancholy had been overcome.

The fever passed away at length, and with it the doctor's occupation to a great extent. But from this time, if any of the villagers were ill, or in trouble, Dr. Mansfield was the first applied to in the difficulty, and they always found in him a ready helper and consoler.