Lyddy came out to the apple-trees in about an hour, laughing nervously as she said, “I’m sorry to have taken a mean advantage of you, Mr. Croft, but I know everything you have in your house, and exactly where it is. I couldn’t help it, you see, when I was making things tidy. It would do you good to look at the boy. His room was too light, and the flies were devouring him. I swept him and dusted him, put on clean sheets and pillow-slips, sponged him with bay rum, brushed his hair, drove out the flies, and tacked a green curtain up to the window. Fifteen minutes after he was sleeping like a kitten. He has a sore throat and considerable fever. Could you—can you—at least, will you, go up to my house on an errand?” “Certainly I can. I know it inside and out as well as my own.” “Very good. On the clock shelf in the sitting-room there is a bottle of sweet spirits of nitre; it’s the only bottle there, so you can’t make any mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. I wonder you didn’t send for him yesterday?” “Davy wouldn’t have him,” apologised his uncle. “_Wouldn’t_ he?” inquired Lyddy with cheerful scorn. “He has you under pretty good control, hasn’t he? But children are unmerciful tyrants.” “Couldn’t you coax him into it before you go home?” asked Anthony in a wheedling voice. “I can try; but it isn’t likely I can influence him, if you can’t. Still, if we both fail, I really don’t see what’s to prevent our sending for the doctor in spite of him. He is as weak as a baby, you know, and can’t sit up in bed: what could he do? I will risk the consequences, if you will!” There was a note of such amiable and winning sarcasm in all this, such a cheery, invincible courage, such a friendly neighbourliness and co-operation, above all, such a different tone from any he was accustomed to hear in Edgewood, that Anthony Croft felt warmed through to the core.