Keturah drank it, and her ashy cheeks grew a shade less grey. Then she turned to the doctor, with one of her dazzling smiles. "I don’t think much on the taste of it, but"—with immense conviction—"it do make you feel so cheerful-like, about the knees." Her mother wrung her hands, but the doctor chuckled, and, placing on the table the innocent-looking medicine bottle he had produced from his pocket, nodded at it, remarking, "Every time she looks so grey, mind!" Mrs. Moulder burnt brown paper in the bedroom, for Matthew came home at five. She dared not pour the accursed stuff away, for the doctor and the curate between them had frightened her out of her wits, by threatening legal proceedings if Keturah were in any way neglected. She had been obliged to confess to the visits of the doctor, who might fly in at any moment when Matthew was at home. But she had not felt in any way called upon to tell her husband that the curate had sat up with Keturah the whole night that he was away, helping her poultice, and allaying the child’s fears as to eternal punishment so successfully that she fell asleep. It was therefore a shock to Matthew, on his return to tea that afternoon, to hear an undoubtedly clerical voice, apparently reading to Keturah. The house was perfectly quiet, though there were movements in the back kitchen, showing the whereabouts of Mrs. Moulder. He stood at the foot of the little narrow staircase and listened, fully prepared to find some taint of ritualism in the curate’s ministrations. He had come to make a convert of Keturah, of that he was sure; was there not an office—Matthew almost licked his lips over the word "office"—in the Book of Common Prayer especially adapted to the visiting of the sick? All the Protestant in him rose in rebellion. He would be calm, but he would convict this meddling priest out of his own mouth. Then with the dignified strength born of a just indignation bid him begone! The bedroom door stood open, and he heard Keturah’s weak little voice saying, "Tell it again! I like it." Matthew braced himself to listen, and this was what he heard:— "We built a ship upon the stairs, All made of the back bedroom chairs, And filled it full of sofa pillows, To go a-sailing on the billows. "We took a saw and several nails, And water in the nursery pails; And Tom said, ’Let us also take An apple and a slice of cake;’— Which was enough for Tom and me To go a-sailing on, till tea. "We sailed along for days and days, And had the very best of plays; But Tom fell out and hurt his knee, So there was no one left but me."