"Stupid fellow!" cried the doctor. But he spoke in a good-natured tone. None, save he, knew how welcome a sight was the handwriting of his son. And when Neal carried down the breakfast-things he coolly told Watton there was a letter for her lying in his pantry, which had come by the morning post. "You might have brought it down," was Watton's answer. "So I might," civilly remarked Neal. "I laid it there and forgot it." CHAPTER XXX. THE DOCTOR'S BIRTHDAY. The dead of the winter passed. That is, Christmas was turned, and January had come in, and was drawing to a close. Dr. Davenal's state of health was beginning to attract attention. It cannot be said that absolute fears were excited, but people said to each other and to him that he ought to take more care. Especial care of himself he certainly did not take, and he seemed to take cold upon cold. It must not be thought that Dr. Davenal was recklessly neglectful, supinely careless. It was not that at all. But he was one of the many who seemed to have an assured trust in their own constitution; almost believing their state of good health immutable. Other folks are liable to ailments, but _they_ have no fear of themselves. This is sometimes notably the case with those who have never experienced illness, who have passed an active life with neither an ache nor a pain. As had Dr. Davenal. Of a naturally good constitution, temperate in his habits, taking a good deal of exercise one way or another, his mind always occupied, he did not know what it was to have a day's illness. The great blow which had fallen upon him in the death of his son told upon his mind more than upon his body. If it had bent his shoulders and left lines of care upon his face, it had not made him ill. It was reserved for the later calamity to do that--that terrible secret whose particulars none save the doctor knew. _That_ had nearly prostrated him--it had re-acted on the body; and when the cold fastened on him the day he had to hasten from Mrs. Scott's hot room to the Infirmary, it laid hold of him for ever.