Read "An Elder Brother" by Eglanton Thorne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"MR. BETTS," said the nurse, three days later, as she came into the room, "that lady is downstairs, and she wants to know if you would like to see her."
"What lady? " asked Michael, though he thought he knew.
"The lady who made you the jelly-Mrs. Lavers, of course."
"Oh no," said Michael, shrinking down and drawing the bedclothes closer about him, as if he would fain hide himself; "I don't want to see her. I can't have her coming here. Tell her so, please."
"Don't you think that seems rather ungrateful, when she has been so kind to you? " asked the nurse. "Shall I say that you do not feel strong enough to see her to-day, but you hope to do so in a day or two?"
"No, no, no! " cried Michael vehemently. "Say nothing of the kind. I can't see her, I tell you. I can't and I won't, so there!"
"You're a strange man," said the nurse; and she went away, perhaps to repeat the same remark below stairs.
When she came back into the room a little later, Michael's eyes were fixed on her anxiously.
"Has she gone? " he asked.
"Yes, she has gone."
"What did she say?"
"Oh, she was sorry you would not see her, and she asked me to give you this. " And the nurse held out to him a little bunch of sweet violets.
But Michael recoiled as if she were offering him something disagreeable.
"I wish she hadn't," he said.
"Well, you are ungrateful," said the nurse. "Catch me ever giving you flowers! And why you couldn't have let her come up to see you, I can't think. She would have read a chapter of the Bible to you, perhaps, and that would have done you good."
"I can read one to myself," said Michael.
"You're hardly strong enough for that yet. Have you a Bible?"
"Of course I've got a Bible," replied Michael indignantly. "What do you take me for? There is one somewhere that belonged to my mother, and there are plenty of them in the shop. Pretty old some of them are, too. The older they are, the more precious they are, you know."
"The Bible is precious anyhow," said the nurse. "It is a grand comfort, especially when one is weak and low. But you're thinking only of the binding, and the paper, and the print, Mr. Betts."
"Of course I am," he said; "it's my business to think of them."