"I don't see's there's much difference."

"Well, I guess I'll get the doctor to come round again," Ann
Eliza said, trying for the matter-of-course tone in which one might
speak of sending for the plumber or the gas-fitter.

"It ain't any use sending for the doctor--and who's going to
pay him?"

"I am," answered the elder sister. "Here's your tea, and a
mite of toast. Don't that tempt you?"

Already, in the watches of the night, Ann Eliza had been
tormented by that same question--who was to pay the doctor?--and a
few days before she had temporarily silenced it by borrowing twenty
dollars of Miss Mellins. The transaction had cost her one of the
bitterest struggles of her life. She had never borrowed a penny of
any one before, and the possibility of having to do so had always
been classed in her mind among those shameful extremities to which
Providence does not let decent people come. But nowadays she no
longer believed in the personal supervision of Providence; and had
she been compelled to steal the money instead of borrowing it, she
would have felt that her conscience was the only tribunal before
which she had to answer. Nevertheless, the actual humiliation of
having to ask for the money was no less bitter; and she could
hardly hope that Miss Mellins would view the case with the same
detachment as herself. Miss Mellins was very kind; but she not
unnaturally felt that her kindness should be rewarded by according
her the right to ask questions; and bit by bit Ann Eliza saw