The doctor came at last, and asked a great many questions and looked very grave. He ordered Mar to bed, not to lie on the sofa any longer, and gave a great many directions about quiet and fresh air and beef tea. He himself helped the boy to his room, and was so careful and so kind that there came to Mar’s mind a half elation, half melancholy, in the thought that he was going to be ill--that at last, after his years of delicate health, there was going to be something the matter with him which would prove all that Mrs. Parke had said, and of which he would possibly die. A great excitement, silent and suppressed, rose in his mind with this thought. It was alarming and strange, but it was not altogether unpleasing. There is a kind of pre-eminence, of superiority, in being very ill to a boy. It was like going into a battle. He felt solemnized, yet half amused. He was to be the hero of a sort of drama--he was to be in danger of his life. It pleased his imagination, which had so little food. And he tried to catch what the doctor was saying when he followed Mrs. Parke into the next room. But by that time he was getting drowsy, and his faculties dulled, and this he could not do. In the next room the conference was grave enough. “He has never been ill before,” said the doctor. “I ever told you so from the first, Mrs. Parke, delicate but not ill, and nothing that he might not shake off with time. But he is ill now. If I am not mistaken he is in for an attack of typhoid, and I fear a bad one. I’ll go straight to the hospital at Claremont and send you a nurse--indeed, you had better have two nurses--care is everything. With great care and unremitting attention we may pull him through.” Letitia was pale, but she was ready for the emergency. “It will not be dangerous for the others?” she said. “No, no, there’s no danger for the others--unless your drains are bad. But he says he was at that horrid little village on the other side of the Park on Friday last, and got a drink of water there. That’s enough to account for it. I’ve often spoken about the state of these cottages. It would be a kind of strange justice if he were to be the first victim. I suppose you’ll let his mother know?” “What is the use of letting his mother know? She takes no notice of him. I think I am the only mother he has ever known.” “There was an aunt,” said the doctor, “who was very much devoted to him. They ought to be told. The fever is high, and he has a delicate constitution. He may have to fight for his life.” “Will you come again to-night?” she said. “I will send the nurses in at once if I can get two, otherwise, perhaps, your old woman will take the night? I’ll come back first thing in the morning. But I think you should let the relations know.”