The Girl at Cobhurst | Page 5

the pillows of the bed appeared the head of an elderly woman,
the skin darkened and wrinkled by time, the nose aquiline, and the
black eyes very sharp and quick of movement. This head was
surrounded by the frills of a freshly laundered night-cap, and the
smooth white coverlid was drawn up close under its chin.

"Upon my word," exclaimed the person in the bed, "is that you, Mrs.
Tolbridge? I thought it was the doctor."
"I don't wonder at that, Miss Panney," said Mrs. Tolbridge. "At times
we have very much the same sort of knock."
"But where is the doctor?" asked the old lady.
"I hope he is at home and asleep," was the reply. "He has been working
very hard lately, and was up the greater part of last night. He was
coming here when he received your message, but I told him he should
not do it; I would come myself, and if I found it absolutely necessary
that you should see him, I would let him know. And now what is the
trouble, Miss Panney?"
Miss Panney fixed her eyes steadfastly upon her visitor, who had taken
a seat by the bedside.
"Catherine Tolbridge," said she, "do you know what will happen to you,
if you don't look out? You'll lose that man."
"Lose him!" exclaimed the other.
"Yes, just that," replied the old lady; "I have seen it over and over again.
Down they drop, right in the middle of their harness. And the stouter
and sturdier they are, the worse it is for them; they think they can do
anything, and they do it. I'll back a skinny doctor against a burly one,
any day. He knows there are things he can't do. He doesn't try, and he
keeps afloat."
"That is exactly what I am trying to do," said the doctor's wife, "and if
those are your opinions, Miss Panney, don't you think that the doctor's
patients ought to have a regard for his health, and that they ought not to
make him come to them in all sorts of weather, and at all hours of the
day, unless there is something serious the matter with them? Now I
don't believe there is anything serious the matter with you today."
"There is always something serious the matter with a person of my

age," said Miss Panney, "and as for Dr. Tolbridge's visits to me doing
him any harm, it is all stuff and nonsense. They do him good; they rest
him; they brighten him up. He's never livelier than when he is with me.
He doesn't have to hang over me all the night, giving me this and that,
to keep the breath in my body, when he ought to be taking the rest that
he needs more than any of us."
Mrs. Tolbridge laughed. "No, indeed," said she, "he never has to do
anything of that kind for you. I believe you are the healthiest patient he
has."
"That may be," said the other, "and it is much to his credit, and to mine,
too. I know when I want a doctor. I don't send for him when I am in the
last stages of anything. But we won't talk anything more about that. I
want to know all about your husband. Do you think he is really out of
health?"
"No," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "he is simply overworked, and needs rest.
Just the sort of rest I hope he is getting this afternoon."
"Nonsense," said Miss Panney; "rest is well enough, but you must give
him more than that if you do not want to see him break down. You
must give him good victuals. Rest, without the best of food, amounts to
little in his case."
"Truly, Miss Panney!" exclaimed her visitor, "I think I give my
husband as good living as any one in Thorbury has or can expect."
"Humph!" said the old lady. "He may have all that, and yet be starving
before your eyes. There isn't a man, woman, or child, in or about
Thorbury, who really lives well--excepting, perhaps, myself."
Mrs. Tolbridge smiled. "I think you do manage to live very well, Miss
Panney."
"Yes," said the other, "and I'd like to manage to have my friends live
well, too. By the way, did you ever make rum-flake for the doctor when
he comes in tired and faint?"

"I never heard of it," replied the other.
"I thought as much," said Miss Panney. "Well, you take the whites of
two eggs and beat them up, and while you are beating you sprinkle rum
over the egg, from a pepper caster, which you ought to keep clean to
use for this and nothing else. Then you should sift in sugar according to
taste, and when you have put a