SON OF THE WIND
deft enough to overcome any difficulty, gently prying open his mouth and pouring in the drops. Occasionally he walked and smoked under the trees, and revolved things far from the question of a dog; again he sat waving a folded paper above his patient to keep away flies. Blanche's face, appearing at the door, brought always the encouraging reassurance, "Seems to be getting on all right;" but to Mrs. Rader he gave less encouraging report. "Never can tell what they get in 'em. His tongue looks swollen to me—hate to see it." He murmured persuasively beneath his breath, encouraging the dog to unclose his teeth that he might slip in the bit of ice.
He stuck to his post until nearly midnight, aware that if he did not the girl would. He persuaded her to bed early, with the pleasant fiction that he noticed an improvement in Beetles' case, when in fact he only entertained the gloomiest expectations of playing the part of sexton on the next day. He was down-stairs early in the morning, and his heart sank to hear in the upper hall and following him on the stair, the rapid patter of straw slippers with expectancy in their haste, expecting evidently, without doubt, to find the hopeful lying prophecy fulfilled. He had scarcely taken in the fact that the dog was still alive, when Blanche appeared, a dressing-robe hugged over her nightgown. Her eyes were still full
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