However, I think there's no help for
it; duty before everything. I snatch up the most necessary drugs, and
set off. Will you believe it? I only just managed to get there at all.
The road was infernal: streams, snow, watercourses, and the dyke had
suddenly burst there--that was the worst of it! However, I arrived at
last. It was a little thatched house. There was a light in the
windows; that meant they expected me. I was met by an old lady, very
venerable, in a cap. 'Save her!' she says; 'she is dying.' I say,
'Pray don't distress yourself--Where is the invalid?' 'Come this way.'
I see a clean little room, a lamp in the corner; on the bed a girl of
twenty, unconscious. She was in a burning heat, and breathing
heavily--it was fever. There were two other girls, her sisters, scared
and in tears. 'Yesterday,' they tell me, 'she was perfectly well and
had a good appetite; this morning she complained of her head, and this
evening, suddenly, you see, like this.' I say again: 'Pray don't be
uneasy.' It's a doctor's duty, you know--and I went up to her and bled
her, told them to put on a mustard-plaster, and prescribed a mixture.
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