That’s what I advise. Plenty of rest.’ Miss Burton fixed the rotund man who had just examined her, with eyes warm with compassion but also bright with intelligence. ‘I’m not a fool, doctor. I know my days are numbered.’ She was lying in the same bed she’d slept in since childhood. Her mother had slept in the next room, though once her father had passed on and she’d turned sick herself, her mother had expected her to share her bed. ‘I’m so cold sleeping alone,’ she’d complained. For the most part Elizabeth Burton had done everything possible to make her mother’s last years comfortable. However, that did not mean she’d neglected her duty, as she saw it, to those who had far less than the Burton family. Her father had been a sergeant in the Salvation Army, caring for anyone who was destitute and down on their luck and his wife had done her duty providing solace and soup to those who needed it. It was always to be expected that Elizabeth would follow in their charitable footsteps, and indeed she had, though rather than deal with the homeless and abandoned, she’d applied for and got a position in the workhouse.
