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  and perhaps make some impression on the shed; but this tempting thought was quickly banished as she reflected that Caleb Kimball was a bachelor, and the Widow Thatcher the person marked out by a just but unsympathetic Providence for sick-nurse and housekeeper.

“She shan’t come!” thought Amanda passionately. “I’ll make the doctor ask me to take charge. William Benson shall stay here nights an’ Susan will run in now an’ then daytimes, or I’ll get little Abby Thatcher to do the rough work an’ keep me company; then her mother won’t make talk.”

“I don’t know exactly what’s the matter with the man,” confessed the doctor, when he came. “There’s a mark and a swelling on the back of his head as if he might have fallen somewhere. He has n’t got any pulse and he’s all skin and bone. He’s starved out, I guess, and his machinery has just stopped. He wants nursing and feeding and all the things a woman can do for him. The Lord never intended men-folks to live alone!”