Her aunt, uncle, and cousins they
proved to be, though the young man whom he remembered as being present
on that occasion was now happily absent. Jordan King found himself
completely reconciled to this at once.
"How is our patient?" Burns said to Anne at the first opportunity.
"Shall I go up at once?"
"Oh, please wait a minute, Doctor Burns; I want to go with you, and I
must see my guests having some tea first."
There followed, for King, what seemed an interminable interval of time,
during which he was forced to sit beside one of Anne's girl cousins--and
a very pretty girl she was, too, only he didn't seem able to appreciate
it--drinking tea, and handing sugar, and doing all the proper things. In
the midst of this Anne vanished with Red Pepper at her heels, leaving
the tea table to Mrs. Coolidge. At this point, however, King found
himself glad to listen to Miss Stockton.
"I don't suppose anybody in the world but Anne Linton Coolidge would
have thought of sending two hundred miles for a surgeon to operate on
her housekeeper," she was saying when his attention was arrested by her
words. "But she thinks such a lot of Timmy--Mrs. Timmins--she would pay
any sum to keep her in the world. She was Anne's nurse, you see, and of
course Anne is fond of her. And I'm sure we're glad she did send for
him, for it gave us the pleasure of meeting Doctor Burns, and of course
we understand now why she thought nobody else in the world could pull
Timmy through.
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