Maggie was comforted by this reply, and she followed Lawrence up stairs to the chamber where André lay. He had been conveyed from Elinora's dressing-room to an apartment in the L, over the dining-room, where the banker and his friends smoked their cigars after dinner. He was lying on a lounge, covered with blankets, and the housekeeper was attending him.
"Poor _mon père_!" exclaimed Maggie, as she threw herself on her knees on the floor by the side of the sick man's couch, and kissed his pale, thin face.
Leo bent over his father's prostrate form, and clasped one of his silky hands, which now felt so cold that the touch chilled his heart. The doctor had just come in to pay his patient a second visit, and stood by the lounge, regarding with interest the devotion of the boy and girl.
André had "come out" of the fit, and recognized his children, as he always called them. He smiled faintly, and tried to return the pressure of Leo's hand, and to kiss the lips of Maggie, pressed to his own; but his strength was not yet equal to his desire.
"I think it would be better to remove him to the hospital," said the doctor to the housekeeper. "He will be well nursed there."
"No, no, no!" exclaimed Maggie, rising and walking up to the physician.
Her idea of the hospital was not a very clear one, and she did not consider it much better than a prison; at least, it was to her a place where sick people who had neither home nor friends were sent; a place where other hands than her own would lave her father's fevered brow, and administer the cooling draught. To her it was sacrilege to permit any but herself to nurse him; and she felt that it was a privilege to stand day and night by his bed, and hold his hand, and anticipate all his wants. Her womanly instincts were strong, and she heard with horror the suggestion to take the sufferer to the hospital.
"Your father would be very kindly cared for at the hospital," said the doctor.
"But it would not be his own home!" pleaded Maggie. "O, he so loves his own home! He always staid there when he was not in the shop. It would break his heart to send him away from his own home when he is sick."
"Have you a mother?" asked Dr. Fisher, kindly.
"I have not; but I will nurse him by day and night. I will be mother, wife, and daughter to him. Do not send him away from me--not from his own home!" continued Maggie, so imploringly that the good physician had to take off his spectacles and wipe the moisture from his eyes.