"Delightful prospects, both of them," he said with energy, as he added the last hurried line, signed and delivered to his wife to enclose in its envelope, then pushed aside writing materials and sat back to enjoy.

"It isn't all delightful," his wife said, shaking her head. "I did hope that poor Marion was going to have a few years of rest. Her life has been such a hard one."

CHAPTER IX.

"TREMENDOUS FACTS!" HE SAID.

It is well that Mrs. Marion Dennis felt entirely safe in her friend Flossy's hands, for her affairs were very thoroughly talked over that evening, and sundry conclusions arrived at.

One question Mrs. Roberts asked her husband, at the close of the conference, which apparently had nothing to do with Marion Dennis'

affairs:--

"Evan, do you know Dr. Everett?"

"Everett? Let me think--yes, I know of him; a young physician, comparatively, who had not been here long, and has made his mark."

"In what direction?"

"Several, perhaps; but I have heard of him chiefly in the line of his profession. He was accidentally called to attend a young lady belonging to a very wealthy family out in Brookline. I say accidentally--that is a reverent way we have of speaking, you know; of course, I mean providentially. The nursery governess in the family was sick, and this Dr. Everett, who had fallen in with her somewhere, volunteered to cure her. He was calling on her one morning when the sick daughter, who, by the way, had been given up by her physician, was taken suddenly and alarmingly worse; in the emergency Dr. Everett was summoned, and while they waited for the regular physician he succeeded in doing such good service that he inspired the mother with confidence; she became anxious to put the case entirely into his hands, which was done, and the young lady recovered, and Dr. Everett's position, professionally, was a.s.sured.

Isn't that an interesting little item for you? He is said to have marked success; and, of course, since the Brookline occurrence his practice is largely among the wealthy. How has your attention been called to him?"

"My protector this morning said he was a 'swell' doctor, who was attending that Calkins boy. I wondered if he did it because he loved Christ. He might be a helper. I want to call on that sick boy to-morrow if I can arrange it. I think I must take some one with me."

"You may take me with you," her husband said, emphatically.

However much trips through alleys with Nimble d.i.c.k might be conducive to that young man's moral development, Mr. Roberts felt that his wife had experimented sufficiently.

Thus it transpired that, dressed in the plainest, quietest garb which her wardrobe would furnish, Mrs. Roberts went to the alley the next morning accompanied by her husband.

In one sense it was a mistake that the first call in the alley should have been made on the Calkins family. It was calculated to give Mrs.

Roberts mistaken ideas as to the manner in which poor people lived. A bare enough room, certainly, not even a bit of carpet laid before the bed, but it was a clean room. Floor and window and cupboard-door were as clean as water could make them; and the bed, while it looked hopelessly hard and dreadful to Mrs. Roberts, was really a pattern of neatness and purity to every dweller in that attic. There was a straw tick, covered with a dark calico spread, which did duty as a sheet, and the boy who lay on it was covered by a patched quilt that had been mended, and was clean. Wonderful things these to say of such a locality! Mr. Roberts suspected it, and Dr. Everett knew it. That gentleman was bending over his patient when the two guests arrived, and vouchsafed them not even a glance, while the dark-haired, dark-eyed, homely, decently-dressed girl gave Mrs. Roberts a seat on the one chair which the room contained, and set a stool for her husband that had been made of four old chair legs and a square board.

Sallie Calkins was somewhat flurried by this unexpected call. She had no idea who the people were, nor for what they had come. A vague fear that they might be in some way connected with her brother's "place" at the printing-office, which he was in such fear of losing that his night had been a restless one, made her hasten to say, in a tremulous voice:--

"The doctor thinks he will be well in a little while. It isn't a bad break, he says, and Mark wants to keep his place. He thinks, maybe, some of the alley boys would keep it for him, if you would be so kind."

She was evidently addressing Mr. Roberts, but she looked at Flossy. The fair, sweet face, that gave her such sympathetic glances, seemed the one to appeal to. Mr. Roberts, however, discerned that he was mistaken for the employer, and immediately dispelled the idea by asking where the boy worked, and how the accident had happened.

"It was the elevator, sir," she said, eagerly. "The chain broke, and it went down with a bang, and Mark was on it, and he rolled off somehow, he doesn't know how; and he has been that bad that he couldn't tell me if he had. He was kind of wild, sir, all night, and talking about his place."

"Was there no one but you to be with him during the night?" Mrs. Roberts asked. "Where is the mother?"

"We've got no mother, ma'am; there is only Mark and me--and father," she added, after a doubtful pause. "But father was not at home last night.

Oh, I didn't need no one to take care of Mark. I wouldn't have left him."

"And he likes to have you take care of him, I am sure. What do you give him to eat? He will need nourishing food, I think; beef teas and broths, and nice little tempting dishes, made with milk, perhaps. Are you his cook, too? I wonder if you wouldn't like to have me show you how to make good things for him? I've learned how to make some nice dishes that sick people like."

Before the bewildered girl could answer, the doctor turned abruptly from his long examination of his patient, and gave the guests the first attention he had vouchsafed them. The truth was this man had had some unfortunate experiences with district visitors, and had perhaps an unreasonable prejudice against them as a cla.s.s. "I can't help it, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Saunders, when she was taking him to task one day. "There are exceptions, of course, at least we will hope there are; but if you had seen some of my specimens, you would be the first to wish an infusion of common sense could be introduced among them. As a rule, they offer a tract where they should give a loaf of bread or a bowl of broth; and wedge their advice and reproofs in with every helpful movement. It is like so many doses of medicine to the patient; to be endured because he is at their mercy, and can't help himself. They mean well, the most of them; but the trouble is, we have a way of making district visitors out of people who have nothing to do, and who have never learned that 'all the nations of the earth were made of one blood.'"

Something in Mrs. Roberts' tones or words seemed to interest him, and he turned toward her.

"Does this alley belong to you?" he asked, abruptly, his mind still full of the district visitor.

She regarded him with a puzzled air for a moment, then answered navely:--

"I don't think it does; if it did I would have some things ever so different."

Dr. Everett laughed; and Mr. Roberts came forward and introduced himself.

"My wife has hardly answered you fully," he said. "I am under the impression that she desires to adopt a certain portion of this alley; at least I have heard of little else since last Sabbath afternoon. She is in search of some stray sheep who have been put under her care."

"Ah," the doctor said, turning quickly to her, "a Sabbath-school teacher? Is this young man one of your scholars?"

"No," she explained; "but she had heard of him while inquiring where one of her boys lived, and she had called to see if she could help in any way. Dirk Colson was the boy who, they told her, lived near this place."

The eyes of the trim sister brightened.

"He lives on the next square," she said. "Oh, ma'am, are you his teacher, and do you care for him? I'm so glad."

"He is a favorite of yours, is he?" the doctor asked, looking from one speaking face to another, and seeming immensely interested in the matter.

"No, indeed!" the girl said, quickly. "He's horrid! But I'm sorry for his sister; and she wants Dirk to get on, and he never does get on; but I thought maybe such a kind of a teacher could help him."

There was such intense and genuine admiration in the girl's voice for the vision of loveliness before her that Dr. Everett could not help smiling.

"It doesn't seem unlikely," said he, with significance; and added: "Who is this Dirk Colson, who seems to be an object of interest?"

"He is one of the worst boys in the alley, sir; sometimes I think he is the very worst, because he is cross as well as hateful; but Mark is always kind of sorry for him, and says he has such a bad father he can't help it. And Mart--that's his sister--she is a friend of mine, and she feels bad about Dirk, but she can't do nothing; he ain't a bit like Mark there."

The last words were spoken tenderly, and the sisterly eyes turned toward the boy on the bed, and obeying a sign from his eyes she went over to him. The doctor plied his questions:--

"Have you recently taken a cla.s.s, madam? and is their general reputation as encouraging as this special scamp of whom we are hearing?"

His words almost jarred on Mrs. Roberts; she had already prayed enough for her boys to have a sort of tender feeling for them--a half desire to cover their faults from the gaze of the indifferent world. Did Dr.

Everett represent the indifferent world, or did he love her Master? She wished she knew.

"There is nothing encouraging about them," she said, with grave earnestness, "save the facts that they are made in the image of G.o.d, and that he wants them to 'turn from the power of Satan unto G.o.d, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them which are sanctified.'"

A rare flash of intelligence and appreciation greeted her now from those fine eyes bent so scrutinizingly on her.

"Tremendous facts!" he said. "Glorious possibilities! 'Himself hath said it.' I claim kinship with you; I am an heir of the same inheritance."

He held a hand to each, and they were cordially grasped. Then Dr.

Everett proceeded to business.