church on the next christening Sunday, but their mother looked
helpless and hopeless about getting them so far, and how was she to
get gossips? Ethel began to grow very indignant, but she was always
shy of finding fault with poor people to their faces when she would
not have done so to persons in her own station, and so she was
silent, while Richard hoped they would be able to manage, and said it
would be better not to wait another month for still worse weather and
shorter days.

As they were coming out of the house, a big, rough-looking,
uncivilised boy came up before them, and called out, "I say--ben't
you the young doctor up at Stoneborough?"

"I am Dr. May's son," said Richard; while Ethel, startled, clung to
his arm, in dread of some rudeness.

"Granny's bad," said the boy; proceeding without further explanation
to lead the way to another hovel, though Richard tried to explain
that the knowledge of medicine was not in his case hereditary. A poor
old woman sat groaning over the fire, and two children crouched,
half-clothed, on the bare floor.

Richard's gentle voice and kind manner drew forth some wonderful
descriptions--"her head was all of a goggle, her legs all of a fur,
she felt as if some one was cutting right through her."

"Well," said Richard kindly, "I am no doctor myself, but I'll ask my
father about you, and perhaps he can give you an order for the
hospital."