Dorothy

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Raymond Evelyn. Dorothy

CHAPTER I. HOW DOROTHY CAME

CHAPTER II. A POSTAL SUBSTITUTE

CHAPTER III. AT JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL

CHAPTER IV. DOROTHY GAINS IN WISDOM

CHAPTER V. DOROTHY ENTERTAINS

CHAPTER VI. DOROTHY GOES UPON AN ERRAND

CHAPTER VII. AN OFFICE SEEKER AND A CLIENT

CHAPTER VIII. TENANTS FOR NO. 77

CHAPTER IX. STRANGE EXPERIENCES

CHAPTER X. THE FLITTING

CHAPTER XI. JIM BARLOW

CHAPTER XII. DOROTHY'S ILLNESS

CHAPTER XIII. THE PLUMBER AND HIS GOSSIP

CHAPTER XIV. THE BITER BIT

CHAPTER XV. THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT

CHAPTER XVI. A GOOD SAMARITAN

CHAPTER XVII. A SUNDAY DRIVE

CHAPTER XVIII. CONCLUSION

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So long a time had passed that Dorothy C. had grown to be what father John called "a baker's dozen of years old"; and upon another spring morning, as fair as that when she first came to them, the girl was out upon the marble steps, scrubbing away most vigorously. The task was known locally as "doing her front," and if one wishes to be considerable respectable, in Baltimore, one's "front" must be done every day. On Saturdays the entire marble facing of the basement must also be polished; but "pernickity" Mrs. Chester was known to her neighbors as such a forehanded housekeeper that she had her Saturday's work done on Friday, if this were possible.

Now this was Friday and chanced to be a school holiday; so Dorothy had been set to the week-end task, which she hated; and therefore she put all the more energy into it, the sooner to have done with it, meanwhile singing at the top of her voice. Then, when the postman came round the corner of the block, she paused in her singing to stare at him for one brief instant. The next she had pitched her voice a few notes higher still, and it was her song that greeted her father's ears and set him smiling in his old familiar fashion. Unfortunately, he had not been smiling when she first perceived him and there had been a little catch in her tones as she resumed her song. Each was trying to deceive the other and each pretending that nothing of the sort was happening.

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"How long have you known about it?"

"I haven't! You shan't be a – a cripple!" protested the impulsive housewife, whose greatest griefs, heretofore, had been simple domestic ones which shrank to nothingness before this real calamity. Then she bowed her head on her arms and let the tears fall fast. This served to relieve the tension of her nerves, and when she again lifted her head her face was calm as sad, while she made him tell her all the details of his trouble. He had been to the best specialists in the city. That very day he had consulted the last, whom he had hoped might possibly help him and whose fee had staggered him by its size.

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