And here was Lizzie Wag ill—seriously ill, perhaps—on the eve of the day on which destiny was to decide with regard to her!
The doctor, D. M. P. Pughe, was announced a little after nine o’clock. To begin with, he asked Jovita Foley about the patient’s temperature.
“Excellent,” he replied.
The doctor then went and sat by the bedside of Lizzie Wag; he looked at her attentively, he made her put out her tongue, he felt her pulse, he listened to her, he auscultated her. Nothing wrong with the heart, nothing wrong with the liver, nothing wrong with the stomach. At last, after a conscientious examination which to him was worth four dollars a visit, he said:
“It will not be serious, unless grave complications intervene.”
“Are these complications to be feared?” asked Jovita Foley, troubled at
