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 shook hands with Mr. O'Brien. "She's very sick and her mother doesn't seem to realize it. I felt that you ought to know about her condition."

"What did the doctor say?" asked O'Brien who knew that the social worker had consulted Mrs. Ledoux's physician.

"He said that both her lungs were affected. She has scarcely any use of her right lung and her left lung is not much better. I'm afraid that he doesn't feel hopeful. He talked very seriously to me about her. I fear that he doesn't think she is going to get well."

For a moment O'Brien was too shocked to reply.

"I didn't have any idea," he began. "I knew she was sick. I didn't think it was anything like that."

The social worker waited until he had recovered himself. Then she said:

"You know that her home is no place for her in that condition."

"I certainly do," the man agreed. "It makes me sick to go there. I hate even to sit down there."

"We ought to give her every chance, and make her comfortable. Won't you see whether you can persuade her to go to the hospital?"