“You’d better go for the doctor, Egbert,” said Winifred bitterly. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” cried Joyce in a panic. “Joyce, my darling, don’t cry!” said Winifred, suddenly catching the little girl to her breast in a strange tragic anguish, the _Mater Dolorata_. Even the child was frightened into silence. Egbert looked at the tragic figure of his wife with the child at her breast, and turned away. Only Annabel started suddenly to cry: “Joycey, Joycey, don’t have your leg bleeding!” Egbert rode four miles to the village for the doctor. He could not help feeling that Winifred was laying it on rather. Surely the knee itself wasn’t hurt! Surely not. It was only a surface cut. The doctor was out. Egbert left the message and came cycling swiftly home, his heart pinched with anxiety. He dropped sweating off his bicycle and went into the house, looking rather small, like a man who is at fault. Winifred was upstairs sitting by Joyce, who was looking pale and important in bed, and was eating some tapioca pudding. The pale, small, scared face of his child went to Egbert’s heart. “Doctor Wing was out. He’ll be here about half past two,” said Egbert. “I don’t want him to come,” whimpered Joyce. “Joyce, dear, you must be patient and quiet,” said Winifred. “He won’t hurt you. But he will tell us what to do to make your knee better quickly. That is why he must come.” Winifred always explained carefully to her little girls: and it always took the words off their lips for the moment. “Does it bleed yet?” said Egbert. Winifred moved the bedclothes carefully aside. “I think not,” she said. Egbert stooped also to look. “No, it doesn’t,” she said. Then he stood up with a relieved look on his face. He turned to the child. “Eat your pudding, Joyce,” he said. “It won’t be anything. You’ve only got to keep still for a few days.” “You haven’t had your dinner, have you, Daddy?” “Not yet.” “Nurse will give it to you,” said Winifred. “You’ll be all right, Joyce,” he said, smiling to the child and pushing the blonde hair off her brow. She smiled back winsomely into his face. He went downstairs and ate his meal alone. Nurse served him. She liked waiting on him. All women liked him and liked to do things for him. The doctor came—a fat country practitioner, pleasant and kind. “What, little girl, been tumbling down, have you? There’s a thing to be doing, for a smart little lady like you! What! And cutting your knee! Tut-tut-tut! That _wasn’t_ clever of you, now was it? Never mind, never mind, soon be better. Let us look at it. Won’t hurt you. Not the least in life. Bring a bowl with a little warm water, nurse. Soon have it all right again, soon have it all right.” Joyce smiled at him with a pale smile of faint superiority. This was _not_ the way in which she was used to being talked to. He bent down, carefully looking at the little, thin, wounded knee of the child. Egbert bent over him.