day voice, which, coming so
suddenly, sounded very droll, "What is that, I wonder?"

Jane hurried to the street-door, and Rosa recovered by magic; and,
preferring gossip to hysterics, in an almost gleeful whisper, ordered
Christopher to open the door of the study. The Bijou was so small that
the following dialogue rang in their ears:--

A boy in buttons gasped out, "Oh, if you please, will you ast the doctor
to come round directly; there's a haccident."

"La, bless me!" said Jane, and never budged.

"Yes, miss. It's our missus's little girl fallen right off an i-chair,
and cut her head dreadful, and smothered in blood."

"La, to be sure!" And she waited steadily for more.

"Ay, and missus she fainted right off; and I've been to the regler
doctor, which he's out; and Sarah, the housemaid, said I had better come
here; you was only just set up, she said; you wouldn't have so much to
do, says she."

"That is all SHE knows," said Jane. "Why, our master--they pulls him in
pieces which is to have him fust."

"What an awful liar! Oh, you good girl!" whispered Dr. Staines and Rosa
in one breath.

"Ah, well," said Buttons, "any way, Sarah says she knows you are clever,
'cos her little girl as lives with her mother, and calls Sarah aunt, has
bin to your 'spensary with ringworm, and you cured her right off."

"Ay, and a good many more," said Jane, loftily. She was a housemaid of
imagination; and while Staines was putting some lint and an instrument
case into his pocket, she proceeded to relate a number of miraculous
cures. Dr. Staines interrupted them by suddenly emerging, and inviting
Buttons to take him to the house.

Mrs. Staines was so pleased with Jane for cracking up the doctor, that
she gave her five shillings; and, after that, used to talk to her a
great deal more than to the cook, which judicious conduct presently set
all three by the ears.

Buttons took the doctor to a fine house in the same street, and told
him his mistress's name on the way--Mrs. Lucas. He was taken up to the
nursery, and found Mrs. Lucas seated, crying and lamenting, and a woman
holding a little girl of about seven, whose brow had been cut open by
the fender, on which she had fallen from a chair; it looked very ugly,
and was even now bleeding.

Dr. Staines lost no time; he examined the wound keenly, and then said
kindly to Mrs. Lucas, "I am happy to tell you it is not serious." He
then asked for a large basin and some tepid water, and b