Randolph? Is it very
serious?"
"Mrs. Randolph thinks so, I believe. Have you spoken to
Daisy?"
"No, and I cannot. Unless I had good news to carry to her."
"Where is she?" said the doctor, getting up.
"In the room next to yours."
So Mrs. Sandford sat down and the doctor went up stairs. The
next thing, he stood behind Daisy at her window. She was not
gazing into the sky now; the little round head lay on her arms
on the window-sill.
"What is going on here?" said a soft voice behind her.
"Oh! Dr. Sandford —" said the child, jumping up. She turned
and faced her friend, with a face so wistful and searching, so
patient, yet so strained with its self-restraint and fear,
that the doctor felt it was something serious with which he
had to do. He did not attempt a light tone before that little
face; he felt that it would not pass.
"I came up to see _you_," he said. "I have nothing new to tell,
Daisy. What are you about?"
"Dr. Sandford," said the child, "won't you tell me a little?"
The inquiry was piteous. For some reason or other, the doctor
did not answer it with a put-off, nor with flattering words,
as doctors are so apt to do. Perhaps it was not his habit, but
certainly in other respects he was not too good a man to do
it.
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