No intentions - 1874 Author:Florence Marryat Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. MEANWHILE Irene, unconscious how her work of charity will influence her future, is sitting with a trembling heart by the bedside of the laundress'... more »s niece. She is unused to sickness or to death, but she knows now that the one can only vanish hence before the presence of the other; for the parish doctor met her, on her entrance to the cottage, and answered her questions about Myra with the utmost frankness. "She may linger," he said doubtfully, " but it is more likely that she will not. She has been breaking up for some time past, and has not sufficient strength to rally fromthis last attack. I shall be here again in the morning; but as I can do her no good, it would be useless my staying now." And the doctor mounted his stout cob and trotted off in another direction. Irene stood watching him till he was out of sight, and then turned into the cottage with a sigh. When the doctor leaves the house in which a patient lies in extremis, it seems as if death had already entered there. There is no cessation of business in Mrs. Cray's dwelling, though her niece does lay dying. People who work hard for stern daily bread cannot afford time for sentiment; and the back kitchen is full of steam and soapsuds, and the washerwomen are clanking backwards and forwards over the wet stones in their pattens, to wring and hang out the linen; and the clatter of tongues and rattling of tubs and noise of the children are so continuous that Irene has difficulty at first in making herself heard. But the child who took the message up to the Court has beenon the look-out for her, and soon brings Mrs. Cray into the front kitchen, full of apologies for having kept her waiting. " I'm sure it's vastly good of you, mum, to come down a second time to-day; and I hope you don't think I made t...« less