e again.

"The doctor was here."

"And what did he say?" Nancy inquired.

"I'm not goin' to get better," she faltered.

"Tut, tut, Mary! Ye're jest wearied out and blue, and ye don't know
what ye say. Think of yer poor childer. What would they do without
their mother?"

"I don't know," murmured Mrs. Bennet, beginning to cry. "The doctor
says I might recover if I had hospital treatment and an operation. But
it's a terrible expense. Just beyond us altogether. He said it would
cost a hundred dollars at least."

"And would ye be puttin' yer life in danger fer the sake o' a sum like
that?" Nancy said, feigning great unbelief.

"It may not seem much to such as you, Mrs. McVeigh, who has a business,
and every traveller spending as he passes by, but Jim is none too
saving, and with three crying babes and a rented farm it's more than we
can ever hope fer," answered Mrs. Bennet.

"Don't you worry one bit more about it, Mary. Maybe the good Lord'll
find a way to help you fer the sake o' Jim and the childer," Nancy
said, encouragingly, and then she went into the kitchen to direct
Bennet in the preparation of the broth, the baby still tucked under her
arm, sleeping peacefully.

It was almost midnight when Nancy arrived at the tavern. She carried a
key for the front door, and passed up through the deserted hallway to
her room. A child's heavy breathing a few feet away told her that
Katie Duncan was in dreamland. Jennie had left a lamp burning low on
her table, and Nancy carried it over to the cot and looked at the
little plump face of her latest adoption. "Her own mother would smile
down from Hiven if she could see her now," she thought. Presently she
set the lamp back on the table, and ensconced herself comfortably in
her capacious rocking-chair. Directly in front of her, two photos were
tacked on the wall, side by side, and her eyes centred upon them. One
was that of a boy, sitting upright, dressed in a suit of clothes
old-fashioned in cut and a size too large for his body. The other,
that of a young man with an open, smiling countenance, a very high
collar, and a coat of immaculate neatness of fit. It was a strange
contrast, but Nancy saw them through the eye of a proud mother. A
debate progressed within her mind for some time, and then she arose,
with decision prominently expressed in her every movement. She
unlocked a small drawer in the ancient black walnut bureau and withdrew
a tattered wallet.