Yet the Senior Surgeon didn’t look an atom jaded or forlorn when he came down to breakfast the next morning. He had on a brand-new gray suit that fitted his big, powerful shoulders to perfection, and the glad glow of his shower-bath was still reddening faintly in his cheeks as he swung around the corner of the table and dropped down into his place, with an odd little grin on his lips directed intermittently toward the White Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl, who already waited him there at each end of the table. “Oh, Father, _isn’t_ it lovely to have my darling, darling Peach all well again!” beamed the Little Crippled Girl, with unusual friendliness. “Speaking of your ’darling Peach,’” said the Senior Surgeon, abruptly--“speaking of your ‘darling Peach,’ I’m going to take her away with me to-day for a week or so.” “Eh?” exclaimed the Little Crippled Girl. “What? What, sir?” stammered the White Linen Nurse. Quite prosily the Senior Surgeon began to butter a piece of toast; but the little twinkle about his eyes belied in some way the utter prosiness of the act. “For a little trip,” he confided amiably, “a little holiday.” A trifle excitedly the White Linen Nurse laid down her knife and fork and stared at him as blue-eyed and wondering as a child. “A holiday?” she gasped. “To a--_beach_, you mean? Would there be a--a roller-coaster? I’ve never seen a roller-coaster.” “Eh?” laughed the Senior Surgeon. “Oh, I’m going, too! I’m going, too!” piped the Little Crippled Girl. Most jerkily the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the table, and swallowed half a cup of coffee at one single gulp. “Going _three_, you mean?” he glowered at his little daughter. “Going _three_?” His comment that ensued was distinctly rough as far as diction was concerned, but the facial expression of ineffable peace that accompanied it would have made almost any phrase sound like a benediction. “Not by a damned sight!” beamed the Senior Surgeon. “This little trip is just for Peach and me.” “But, sir--” fluttered the White Linen Nurse. Her face was suddenly pinker than any rose that ever bloomed. With an impulse absolutely novel to him, the Senior Surgeon turned and swung his little daughter very gently to his shoulder. “Your Aunt Agnes is coming to stay with _you_ in just about ten minutes,” he affirmed. “That’s what’s going to happen to _you_. And maybe there’ll be a pony--a white pony.” “But Peach is so--pleasant!” wailed the Little Crippled Girl. “Peach is so pleasant!” she began to scream and kick. “So it seems,” growled the Senior Surgeon; “and she’s--dying of it.” Tearfully the Little Girl wriggled down to the ground, and hobbled around and thrust her finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse’s blushiest cheek. “I don’t want Peach to die,” she admitted worriedly; “but I don’t want anybody to take her away.” “The pony is very white,” urged the Senior Surgeon with a diplomacy quite alien to him. Abruptly the Little Girl turned and faced him.