The former is
small, and the latter enormous. The wife is dead; but
her mother, Mrs. White, keeps house for him; and there
are two dear little girls, about five and seven. Then
there is an unqualified assistant, a young Irish student,
who, with the three maids, the coachman, and the stable
boy, make up the whole establishment. When I tell you
that we give four horses quite as much as they can do,
you will have an idea of the ground we cover.
The house, a large square brick one, standing in its
own grounds, is built on a small hill in an oasis of
green fields. Beyond this, however, on every side the
veil of smoke hangs over the country, with the mine pumps
and the chimneys bristling out of it. It would be a
dreadful place for an idle man: but we are all so busy
that we have hardly time to think whether there's a view
or not.
Day and night we are at work; and yet the three
months have been very pleasant ones to look back upon.
I'll give you an idea of what a day's work is like.
We breakfast about nine o'clock, and immediately
afterwards the morning patients begin to drop in. Many
of them are very poor people, belonging to the colliery
clubs, the principle of which is, that the members pay a
little over a halfpenny a week all the year round, well
or ill, in return for which they get medicine and
attendance free. "Not much of a catch for the doctors,"
you would say, but it is astonishing what competition
there is among them to get the appointment.
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