"That's true," Maurice responded cheerfully. "I dreamed in the night that I was all in bits."
"Plenty of poor fellows were. It was the most terrible smash-up for years."
"How is Miss Morison?" Wynne asked, wondering if his voice betrayed the inward agitation without which he could not pronounce her name.
"Oh, she's all right. Nervous and shaky, of course; but she's a sound, wholesome creature, and it won't take her long to recover her tone."
"Yes; I brought her up," interposed Mehitabel, with grim self-complacency. "Don't pull that bandage so tight, doctor. You want to have me running over after you in an hour to come and loosen it."
"That's it, Mehitabel; teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I come here, Mr. Wynne, chiefly to learn my profession from her."
"She seems willing to teach you," Wynne replied, and then, with a boyish doubt if she might not take offense, he added, "which of course is very kind of her."
"Kind it is and unappreciated it is; and little is the credit he does to his training. Men are all alike; if they owned half they owe to women they'd be too ashamed to show their heads in daylight."
The droll airs of the old woman entertained Wynne so greatly that he bore with exemplary fortitude the painful attentions of the physician, the harder to bear because the wound had had time to inflame. The arm was dressed at last, and the doctor took himself away with a parting passage of arms with Mehitabel.
"The thing for you to do, young man," she said, when Dr. Murray had departed, "is to stay in bed where you are, and that's reason enough for a man to want to get up."
"I'm not fond of staying in bed," Maurice responded with a smile; "and besides that I must get back to Boston."
She regarded him with an expression of marked disfavor.
"Humph," said she. "Quarters ain't good enough for you, I suppose."
"On the contrary, it is I who am not good enough for the quarters."
Mehitabel went on with her work of arranging the curtains and putting the room to rights as she answered:--
"Well, I dare say you ain't; but what special thing've you done?"
"Special thing?" Maurice repeated, somewhat confused. "Oh, I see. The fact is, I don't think I've any right to impose on the hospitality of Mrs. Morison."