This girl was, as it were, a child to him, for he had seen her grow up from infancy, and had often held her on his knee in her early years.

The first thing he did was to get her a nurse, for he saw that neither of the two women about her exercised a quieting influence upon her nerves.

So he got her old friend, Nurse Byloe, to come and take care of her.
The old nurse looked calm enough at one or two of his first visits, but the next morning her face showed that something had been going wrong.
"Well, what has been the trouble, Nurse ?" the Doctor said, as soon as he could get her out of the room.
"She's been attackted, Doctor, sence you been here, dreadful.

It's them high stirricks, Doctor, 'n' I never see 'em higher, nor more of 'em.
Laughin' as ef she would bust.

Cryin' as ef she'd lost all her friends, 'n' was a follerin' their corpse to their graves.