BER ARRIVES, AND THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN LOCK
THE DOOR.

The ladies were not much the wiser, though, I confess, they were not far
removed from the door. The great men inside talked indistinctly and
technically, and once Doctor Dillon was so unfeeling as to crack a
joke--they could not distinctly hear what--and hee-haw brutally over it.
And poor little Mrs. Sturk was taken with a great palpitation, and
looked as white as a ghost, and was, indeed, so obviously at the point
of swooning that her women would have removed her to the nursery, and
placed her on the bed, but that such a procedure would have obliged them
to leave the door of their sick master's room, just then a point of too
lively interest to be deserted. So they consoled their mistress, and
supported her with such strong moral cordials as compassionate persons
in their rank and circumstances are prompt to administer.

'Oh! Ma'am, jewel, don't be takin' it to heart that way--though, dear
knows, 'tis no way surprisin' you would; for may I never sin if ever I
seen such a murtherin' steel gimblet as the red-faced docthor--I mane
the Dublin man--has out on the table beside the poor masther--'tid
frighten the hangman to look at it--an' six towels, too! Why, Ma'am
dear, if 'twas what they wor goin' to slaughter a bullock they wouldn't
ax more nor that.'

'Oh! don't. Oh! Katty, Katty--don't, oh don't'

'An' why wouldn't I, my darlin' misthress, tell you what's doin', the
way you would not be dhruv out o' your senses intirely if you had no
notion, Ma'am dear, iv what they're goin' to do to him?'

At this moment the door opened, and Doctor Dillon's carbuncled visage
and glowing eyes appeared.

'Is there a steady woman there--not a child, you know, Ma'am?
A--_you'll_ do (to Katty). Come in here, if you please, and we'll tell
you what you're to do.'

So, being nothing loath, she made her courtesy and glided in.

'Oh! doctor,' gasped poor Mrs. Sturk, holding by the hem of his garment,
'do you think it will kill him?'

'No, Ma'am--not to-night, at any rate,' he answered, drawing back; but
still she held him.

'Oh! doctor, you think it _will_ kill him?'

'No, Ma'am--there's always some danger.'

'Danger of what, Sir?'

'Fungus, Ma'am--if he gets over the chance of inflammation. But, on the
other hand, Ma'am, we may do him a power of good; and see, Ma'am, 'twill
be best for you to go down or into the nursery, and we'll call you,
Ma'am, if need be--that is, if