“But you must not here,” said the doctor, who was an old man, and smiled at her kindly,--“nor chatter at all, indeed, for several days. See how it brings the blood to her face! If you will be very good you may see your father, and ask--let me see--six questions; but not one word more.” “Is papa still here?” cried Kate. “That is one,” said the doctor; “be careful, or you will come to the end of your list, as the man in the fairy tale came to the end of his wishes. He is waiting to come in.” “Have I only five left?” said Kate. “Please, let him come in. I shall ask him how it all happened; and then I shall ask him where we are--that is three; and when he is going home; and what is the matter with me that I must lie here--and then----” She had been counting on her fingers, and paused with the forefinger of one hand resting on the little finger of the other. Mrs Mitford had gone to the door to admit Mr Crediton, and Kate was alone with the old doctor, who looked at her so kindly. She laid back her head among the pillows, a little flushed by talking; her pretty hair, which Mrs Mitford had just smoothed, had begun to ruffle up again in light little puffs of curls. She lay back, looking up at the doctor like a certain Greuze I know of, with fingers like bits of creamy pink shells, half transparent, doing their bit of calculation. “And then,” she added, with a long-drawn breath, half of mischief, half of fatigue, “I will ask him who is ‘my John’?” “Has she been talking to you about my John?” said the doctor, amused; and Kate gave a little nod of her pretty head at him, where she lay back like a rosebud upon the pillows. It was too late to answer in words, for Mrs Mitford was coming back from the door, followed by Mr Crediton, who looked excited and anxious, and had something like a tear in the corner of his eyes. “Well, my pet, so you are better!” he said. “That is right, Kate. I have had a most miserable night, doctor, thinking of her. But now I hear it’s going to be all right. It is not, of course, for any special virtue in her,” he said, turning round to them with a strained little laugh when he had kissed her, “but one has all sorts of prejudices about one’s only child.” “Yes, indeed. I know very well what it is to have an only child,” said Mrs Mitford. “You could not find more sympathy anywhere in that particular. When there is anything the matter with my boy, the whole world is turned upside down.”