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'Should I be in quietness there, Sir?' asked Jessy.

'Perfectly so, and every thing done to give you ease.'

'O! if it is quiet, I should like well to go,' replied Jessy, earnestly.

The doctor turned to her mother. 'My good woman, your daughter would be much better in the Infirmary, where she could be properly attended to, than here.'

'In the Infirmary!' repeated Mrs. Grey; 'My bairn in the Infirmary! Never. Attended to! I am sure I do nothing but attend to her! and there is not a friend I have, or one of the neighbours, who has not come to ask for her, and see her sore leg, every day since she got it. Attended to indeed!'

'But this is the worst thing possible for her, my good woman,' replied the doctor mildly; 'You intend it for kindness, but your girl ought to be kept perfectly quiet, and see no person but the one who attends her; that would be difficult here, as I see you have articles for sale at your door, and must be constantly coming and going; so I really think you had better allow your daughter to go where she may be kept as she ought to be.'

Mrs. Grey seemed at a loss for a reply to this mild remonstrance; but a neighbour whispered something to her, and then she said, 'Sir, if you want Jessy to go to the Infirmary, because you think it is too much trouble to come here and see her, I must just try to get another doctor; but go to the Infirmary Jessy shall not.'

'O mother!' said Jessy, 'how can you speak that way! I am much obliged to you, Sir, for being so kind as to come.'

'I shall prove to you woman,' said the doctor, 'that it is not to save myself trouble I have made this proposal: but if you continue to undo the dressings of this wound, I must just tell you, that you have more to answer for than you are aware of.' He then, in a manner that, compared to the usual one, gave Jessy scarcely any pain, dressed the sore, and after again charging Mrs. Grey on no account whatever to meddle with it till he returned, left the house.

When Thomas Grey returned at night, his wife soon told him, that the fine doctor he had sent, had proposed Jessy's going to the Infirmary.

'Well,' replied Thomas, 'I am sure she would be far better there than here.'

'If she was your own child, Thomas, you would not say that.'

'If it was my own self!' replied Thomas, with one of his oaths, 'I would say it. Have I not been in an hospital, and do I not know that it is a far better place to get any thing healed in than this disorderly cellar, that's shaken like an earthquake by every cart that goes by, and that you fill with clattering women from morning to night?'

'I wish you could get my mother to let me go, father,' said Jessy. 'I am sure I should be far sooner well; and then, mother, you would be glad you had not hindered me.'

'And have you the sense to wish to go, Jessy ?' asked Thomas.

'I wish very much to go,' replied Jessy, 'The doctor told me it was quiet there, and that everything would be done to give me ease; and I am sure I would soon be better, for you cannot think, father, what a different thing it was when he dressed it today.'

'Then go you shall, my lassie!' said Thomas firmly, 'and that before another day is over your head.'

Mrs. Grey's anger had been kindling during this Conversation, and now burst forth in loud scolding, in the course of which she declared, that no power on earth should take her child to the Infirmary.

'We shall see,' said Thomas, firmly. Jessy attempted to interpose, and make peace, but her mother only scolded the more loudly and fiercely. At last Thomas said in a suppressed tone of voice, 'There is your great love for Jessy -- there is the way you keep her quiet! Though I never saw the lassie till a year ago, and wish from my soul I had never seen either her or her mother, I would not for a hundred pounds make such a clamour beside her, after the doctor said so much about keeping her quiet.'

'But,' said Mrs. Grey, lowering her voice a little, 'you would send her to the Infirmary to have her leg ta'en aff, -- for I am sure they'll do nothing less.'

Jessy started when her mother said this.

The scolding continued, and her father sometimes answered with oaths, but Jessy, who was used to those dreadful sounds, heard them not. She could not bear to think of what her mother had said, yet she could think of nothing else. She had heard frightful stories of operations at the Infirmary, and now they all returned to her mind. She breathed short, and her heart beat quick from fear. The doctor had ordered her a draught to make her sleep, which she had taken, but now she could not sleep, and the draught only made her head uneasy, and added to the confusion and horridness of the ideas with which her imagination was filled. Never did poor Jessy pass a more miserable night. Towards morning she dosed occasionally, but, after a short interval of sleep, would start awake from some frightful dream.

The doctor came early next day. Thomas had staid at home, that he might see him, and get a line of admission for Jessy into the Infirmary. When the doctor saw Jessy, and felt her pulse, he asked if she had slept ?