best of care of her; I have always kept
her proper."

"I am not saying anything to the contrary," said Madame Dupont, "but the
child is sick, the doctors have said it."

The nurse was not to be persuaded; she thought they were getting ready
to scold her. "Humph," she said, "that's a fine thing--the doctors! If
they couldn't always find something wrong you'd say they didn't know
their business."

"But our doctor is a great doctor; and you have seen yourself that our
child has some little pimples."

"Ah, ma'am," said the nurse, "that's the heat--it's nothing but the heat
of the blood breaking out. You don't need to bother yourself; I tell you
it's only the child's blood. It's not my fault; I swear to you that she
had not lacked anything, and that I have always kept her proper."

"I am not reproaching you--"

"What is there to reproach me for? Oh, what bad luck! She's tiny--the
little one--she's a bit feeble; but Lord save us, she's a city child!
And she's getting along all right, I tell you."

"No," persisted Madame Dupont, "I tell you--she has got a cold in her
head, and she has an eruption at the back of the throat."

"Well," cried the nurse, angrily, "if she has, it's because the doctor
scratched her with that spoon he put into her mouth wrong end first! A
cold in the head? Yes, that's true; but if she has caught cold, I can't
say when, I don't know anything about it--nothing, nothing at all. I
have always kept her well covered; she's always had as much as three
covers on her. The truth is, it was when you came, the time before last;
you were all the time insisting upon opening the windows in the house!"

"But once more I tell you," cried Madame Dupont, "we are not putting any
blame on you."

"Yes," cried the woman, more vehemently. "I know what that kind of talk
means. It's no use--when you're a poor country woman."

"What are you imagining now?" demanded the other.

"Oh, that's all right. It's no use when you're a poor country woman."

"I repeat to you once more," cried Madame Dupont, with difficulty
controlling her impatience, "we have nothing whatever to blame you for."

But the nurse began to weep. "If I had known that anything like this was
coming to me--"

"We have nothing to blame you for," declared the other. "We only wish to
warn you that you might possibly catch the disease of the child."

The woman pouted. "A cold in the head!" she exclaimed. "Well, if I catch
it, it won't be the first t