me sleeping away from you! I'll never do it again. I don't know what I
_would_ do if anything happened to you.... Do you feel any headache,
dear?"

"No--not--not so much as-- Side pains me--here."

Mrs. Golden's words labored like a steamer in heavy seas; the throbbing
of her heart shook them like the throb of the engines. She put her hand
to her right side, shakily, with effort. It lay there, yellow against
the white muslin of her nightgown, then fell heavily to the bed, like a
dead thing. Una trembled with fear as her mother continued, "My
pulse--it's so fast--so hard breathing--side pain."

"I'll put on an ice compress and then I'll go and get a doctor."

Mrs. Golden tried to sit up. "Oh no, no, no! Not a doctor! Not a
doctor!" she croaked. "Doctor Smyth will be busy."

"Well, I'll have him come when he's through."

"Oh no, no, can't afford--"

"Why--"

"And--they scare you so--he'd pretend I had pneumonia, like Sam's
sister--he'd frighten me so--I just have a summer cold. I--I'll be all
right to-morrow, deary. Oh no, no, _please_ don't, please don't get a
doctor. Can't afford it--can't--"

Pneumonia! At the word, which brought the sterile bitterness of winter
into this fetid August room, Una was in a rigor of fear, yet galvanized
with belief in her mother's bravery. "My brave, brave little mother!"
she thought.

Not till Una had promised that she would not summon the doctor was her
mother quieted, though Una made the promise with reservations. She
relieved the pain in her mother's side with ice compresses--the ice
chipped from the pitiful little cake in their tiny ice-box. She
freshened pillows, she smoothed sheets; she made hot broth and bathed
her mother's shoulders with tepid water and rubbed her temples with
menthol. But the fever increased, and at times Mrs. Golden broke through
her shallow slumber with meaningless sentences, like the beginning of
delirium.

At midnight she was panting more and more rapidly--three times as fast
as normal breathing. She was sunk in a stupor. And Una, brooding by the
bed, a crouched figure of mute tragedy in the low light, grew more and
more apprehensive as her mother seemed to be borne away from her. Una
started up. She would risk her mother's displeasure and bring the
doctor. Just then, even Doctor Smyth of the neighborhood practice and
obstetrical habits seemed a miracle-worker.

She had to go four blocks to the nearest drug-store that would be open
at this t