Chapter 17 - Page 2

way."

I smiled at his words, well pleased.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're a doctor!" I cried, much relieved at the
news; "for I'm not the least little bit in the world afraid of YOU.
I don't mind your attending me. I like to have you with me." For I
had always a great fancy for doctors, somehow.

"That's well," he said, smiling at me such a sweet sympathetic smile
as he felt my pulse with his finger. "Confidence is the first great
requisite in a patient: it's half the battle. You're not seriously
hurt, I hope, but you're very much shaken. Whether you like it or
not, you'll have to stop here now for some days at least, till
you're thoroughly recovered."

I'm ashamed to write it down; but I was really pleased to hear it.
Nothing would have induced me to go voluntarily to their house with
the intention of stopping there--for they were friends of Dr.
Ivor's. But when you're carried on a stretcher to the nearest
convenient house, you're not responsible for your own actions. And
they were both so nice and kind, it was a pleasure to be near them.
So I was almost thankful for that horrid accident, which had cut the
Gordian knot of my perplexity as to a house to lodge in.

It was a fortnight before I was well enough to get out of bed and
lie comfortably on the sofa. All that time Jack and Elsie tended me
with unsparing devotion. Elsie had a little bed made up in my room;
and Jack came to see me two or three times a day, and sat for whole
hours with me. It was so nice he was a doctor! A doctor, you know,
isn't a man--in some ways. And it soothed me so to have him sitting
there with Elsie by my bedside.

They were "Jack" and "Elsie" to me, to their faces, before three
days were out; and I was plain "Una" to them: it sounded so sweet
and sisterly. Elsie slipped it out the second morning as naturally
as could be.

"Una'd like a cup of tea, Jack;" then as red as fire all at once,
she corrected herself, and added, "I mean, Miss Callingham."

"Oh, do call me Una!" I cried; "it's so much nicer and more
natural.... But how did you come to know my name was Una at all?"
For she slipped it out as glibly as if she'd always called me so.

"Why, everybody knows that." Elsie answered, amused. "The whole
world speaks of you always as Una Callingham. You forget you're a
celebrity. Doctors have read memoirs about you at Medical
Congresses. You've been discussed in every paper in Europe and
America."

I paused and sighed. This was very humiliating. It was unpleasant to
rank in the public mind somewhere between Constance Kent and Laura
Bridgman. But I