As the time fixed for the examination drew nearer, I sometimes rose at six, and did an hour's work before breakfast. It was not easy to leave my bed in the raw cold of the early morning and dress by gaslight. In spite of the little oil-stove which I used to kindle in my room, the cold seemed to benumb all my faculties. After a while I decided that it was better to work late at night, and I would sit up wrestling with some mathematical problem long after the other members of the household were wrapped in slumber. Soon I began to be conscious of a sick, dizzy sensation when I rose; severe headaches often interrupted my studies; it became increasingly difficult for me to concentrate my thoughts. "How cross Nan is!" I used to hear my younger sisters whisper to each other, and my conscience told me that the words were true, and reproached me also for the way in which I lost patience with my little pupils. At last there came an hour when everything faded from me as I sat at my desk. My spirit seemed to go away to the very bounds of existence. As from a great distance I came back to consciousness, with a singing in my ears and a feeling of deadly sickness, and beheld the faces of mother, Olive, and our maid-of-all-work looking down on me. "What is the matter? What is it all about?" I asked vaguely. "You fainted, darling—just an ordinary fainting-fit, nothing more," mother said. It was such an unusual thing for mother to use terms of endearment that I knew when she called me "darling" that I must have alarmed her very much, and I almost fainted again from the shock of finding myself such a centre of anxious interest. Mother gave me a strong dose of sal-volatile, which soon brought me round. I was put to bed, but for the rest of the evening, some one kept watch beside me. My swoon had lasted a long time, and, since even ordinary fainting fits do not occur without a cause, Dr. Algar was on the morrow called in to examine me, with the result recorded above. "I hate story-books," I said crossly. "Cannot you give me a tonic that will pick me up?" He shook his head as he smiled on me with a very kindly look in his eyes. "The tonic you need, my dear, is rest and play, or at least the change of work which is said to be as good as play. She wants to go out to grass, and kick up her heels like a young pony, Mrs. Darracott. You should send her into the country, and give her a bicycle, or let her go where there are golf links, and learn to play. In fact, she needs to live an open-air life as far as that is possible in our climate." I looked at mother and tried to smile, but merely succeeded, I believe, in making a dismal grimace. How unreasonable the old doctor was! He might as well have ordered champagne and oysters for a dweller in the slums. How could my parents afford to send me into the country for an indefinite period? Mother's face wore a troubled expression as she said gently: