I have been an only child ever since I can remember. But I was not always an only child. When I was a baby of a very few months old, a terrible trouble came to our house: scarlet fever broke out very badly in the little town or big village, whichever you like to call it, where we lived then, and where we still live. And among the first deaths from it were those of my brothers and sister, the doctor's own children! Fancy--_three_ dear little children all dying together--in two days at least, I think it was. No one was to blame for their catching the infection; the fever broke out so suddenly that there was no time to send them away, and though papa, as the doctor, had of course to be constantly attending the fever cases, his own children must have caught it before there could possibly have been time for him to bring it to them. Even if he _could_ have done so, which was doubtful, as for the two or three days before they got ill he never came into the house at all, and did not even see mamma, but eat his meals and slept in a room over the stables. I have always been glad for papa to know it could not have come through him, for even though it would have been in the way of duty--and papa is a perfect _hero_ about duty--he might have blamed himself for some carelessness or forgetfulness. And once--though they seldom speak of that awful time--mamma said something of the kind to me. I was the baby, as I have told you. A tiny, rather delicate little thing. And, strange to say, I did not catch the fever. They did not send me away; it seemed no use after all the risks I had already run. I could almost think that poor mamma must have felt as if it would not so very much matter whether I got it or not; _my_ dying then could not have made things much worse for her to bear! For, after all, a very little baby, even though it is nice and funny and even sweet in its way, can't be anything like as interesting or as much a part of your life as talking, understanding, loving children. So it seems to me, though mamma doesn't quite agree with me. She loves me so very much that I think she couldn't bear to think there ever was a time when I was less to her. I fancy the truth is that she does not very clearly remember what she felt during those dreadful days; I hope she does not, for even to think of them makes me shiver. They were such dear children; so bright and healthy and happy. Mamma seemed like a person in a dream or a trance, our old Prudence has often told me, after the last, Kenneth, the eldest, it was, died. Fancy the empty nurseries, fancy all the toys and books, and, worst of all, the little hats, and jackets, and _shoes_ lying about just as usual! For they were only ill four days--oh, I think it must have been _awful_. And yet so beautiful too.