Gratia's Trials — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 GRATIA’S TRIALS, that told of long illness, lay quite silent now. except for the occasional low sob that shook her attenuated frame. It must have been fully fifteen minutes afterward that a sub- dued tap came to the door of the room. Moving like a well- conditioned black cat, Miss Bassett answered the summons, and beheld a tall, elderly man, in spectacles, and a shabby suit of black—a man whose shoulders were bowed, as if with much stooping over sick-beds, and whose kindly, near-sighted eyes had watched the off-flitting of many a ransomed soul in their time. He looked searchingly down at the pale, sharp face, whose yellow-whiteness was so different from the white of the daintily bleached pillow-cases, and lifted the slender wrist to feel the pulse. ‘“‘Four higher than it ought to be,” said Dr. Moseley, look- ing at his big, silver-cased watch. ‘‘Anything happened to worry her, eh ?” | ‘‘Oh, dear, no, doctor!” exclaimed Miss Bassett, in a tone of injured innocence. ‘‘ What should-worry her, with me in the room ?” ‘Well, I dont know,” said the doctor, meditatively, feeling his chin ; ‘‘ but I can’t tell how else to account for this sudden acceleration of the pulse since morning,” He stooped and inhaled the feeble breath. ‘‘She—she never has been an opium eater 2” ‘¢Qh, dear, no, sir.” ‘‘There’s no laudanum or paregoric where she could get to it?” | Rs - Miss Bassett winced slightly, but so slightly that no one would have observed it, as she answered : ‘Certainly not, doctor.” ‘* Miss Bassett,” said the doctor, ‘‘ this is a very critical case. Ishall change the treatment. Let her have these powders every half hour,” he continued, folding up sundry little mounds of gray, ash-like dust in papers. ‘“‘ Waking or sleeping, don’t I Eomichbooks.co 2