Melanctha was not
sure that her father was now any longer here in Bridgepoint. It
was Melanctha who was very good now to her mother. It was always
Melanctha's way to be good to any one in trouble.
Melanctha took good care of her mother. She did everything that any
woman could, she tended and soothed and helped her pale yellow mother,
and she worked hard in every way to take care of her, and make her
dying easy. But Melanctha did not in these days like her mother any
better, and her mother never cared much for this daughter who was
always a hard child to manage, and who had a tongue that always could
be very nasty.
Melanctha did everything that any woman could, and at last her mother
died, and Melanctha had her buried. Melanctha's father was not heard
from, and Melanctha in all her life after, never saw or heard or knew
of anything that her father did.
It was the young doctor, Jefferson Campbell, who helped Melanctha
toward the end, to take care of her sick mother. Jefferson Campbell
had often before seen Melanctha Herbert, but he had never liked her
very well, and he had never believed that she was any good. He had
heard something about how she wandered. He knew a little too of Jane
Harden, and he was sure that this Melanctha Herbert, who was her
friend and who wandered, would never come to any good.
Dr. Jefferson Campbell was a serious, earnest, good young joyous
doctor.
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