At length the door opened and he entered.
Polly was out of bed in an instant and crouching at the head of
the stairs, shivering with cold and fear, while she waited to hear
his first words to her mother. She thought he would never get his
coat off and go into the parlor. When he did, she heard something
that seemed to stop her breath.
"I've only just pulled Alan through, to-night," the doctor was
saying to his wife. "When I went in, I thought there wasn't much
chance for him; but the worst is over, for the present."
"What was it?" asked his wife anxiously.
"Acute pneumonia, as much as anything," answered the doctor; "but
it's mixed up with his rheumatism till he's a poor, forlorn little
bundle of aches and pains. They sent for me just in time, too. If
they'd waited till morning, we should have lost our Alan."
"What brought it on?" asked Mrs. Adams, and her voice was a little
unsteady as she spoke.
"That is the strangest part of it," replied her husband. "He came
in this noon, dripping wet, and Mrs. Hapgood hasn't been able to
make him tell what had happened."
"Oh, mamma!"
The doctor and his wife both started up, at the sound of the
strange, stifled voice. In the door directly behind them stood
Polly, barefooted and with her teeth chattering violently, while
her face was so swollen with tears as to be almost unrecogizable.
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