"Do you consider me a stark idiot, or a shallow quack?"
"Neither, sir, I assure you."
"Then, if I know anything about my business, I wrote you the truth this morning, and you treat my advice with cool contempt. You vex me beyond all endurance! Do you want to throw yourself into the jaws of death?"
"You forget, Doctor: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.'"
She slipped her hand into his, and looked up, smiling and calm, into his harsh, swarthy face.
"My child, you made a mistake; your life belongs to me, for I saved it in your infancy. I cradled you in my arms, lest death should snatch you. I have a better right to you than anybody else in this world. I don't want to see you die; I wish to go first."
"I know what I owe you, Doctor; but I am not going to die, and you have scolded me enough for one time. Do make peace."
"Remember, I warned you, and you would not heed."
From that hour she kept faithful vigil in No. 13, passing continually from one bedside to another. Susan's attack proved comparatively light, and she was soon pronounced convalescent; but little Johnnie was desperately ill, and for several nights Irene sat at his pillow, fearing that every hour would be his last. While his delirium was at its height, Hester was taken violently, and on the morning when Irene felt that her labour was not in vain, and that the boy would get well, his little sister, whom she had nursed quite as assiduously, grew rapidly worse, and died at noon. As is frequently observed in such diseases, this increased in virulence with every new case. It spread with astonishing celerity through the Row, baffling the efforts of the best physicians in W——; and finally, the day after Hester's death, as Irene sat trying to comfort the poor mother, a neighbour came in exclaiming—
"Oh, Miss Irene! Philip Martin is down too. He caught the fever from his mother, and his father says won't you please come over?"