It was the very next day that Mother had to stay in bed because her head ached so. Her hands were burning hot, and she would not eat anything, and her throat was very sore. “If I was you, Mum,” said Mrs. Viney, “I should take and send for the doctor. There's a lot of catchy complaints a-going about just now. My sister's eldest--she took a chill and it went to her inside, two years ago come Christmas, and she's never been the same gell since.” Mother wouldn't at first, but in the evening she felt so much worse that Peter was sent to the house in the village that had three laburnum trees by the gate, and on the gate a brass plate with W. W. Forrest, M.D., on it. W. W. Forrest, M.D., came at once. He talked to Peter on the way back. He seemed a most charming and sensible man, interested in railways, and rabbits, and really important things. When he had seen Mother, he said it was influenza. “Now, Lady Grave-airs,” he said in the hall to Bobbie, “I suppose you'll want to be head-nurse.” “Of course,” said she. “Well, then, I'll send down some medicine. Keep up a good fire. Have some strong beef tea made ready to give her as soon as the fever goes down. She can have grapes now, and beef essence--and soda-water and milk, and you'd better get in a bottle of brandy. The best brandy. Cheap brandy is worse than poison.” She asked him to write it all down, and he did. When Bobbie showed Mother the list he had written, Mother laughed. It WAS a laugh, Bobbie decided, though it was rather odd and feeble. “Nonsense,” said Mother, laying in bed with eyes as bright as beads. “I can't afford all that rubbish. Tell Mrs. Viney to boil two pounds of scrag-end of the neck for your dinners to-morrow, and I can have some of the broth. Yes, I should like some more water now, love. And will you get a basin and sponge my hands?” Roberta obeyed. When she had done everything she could to make Mother less uncomfortable, she went down to the others. Her cheeks were very red, her lips set tight, and her eyes almost as bright as Mother's. She told them what the Doctor had said, and what Mother had said. “And now,” said she, when she had told all, “there's no one but us to do anything, and we've got to do it. I've got the shilling for the mutton.” “We can do without the beastly mutton,” said Peter; “bread and butter will support life. People have lived on less on desert islands many a time.” “Of course,” said his sister. And Mrs. Viney was sent to the village to get as much brandy and soda-water and beef tea as she could buy for a shilling. “But even if we never have anything to eat at all,” said Phyllis, “you can't get all those other things with our dinner money.” “No,” said Bobbie, frowning, “we must find out some other way. Now THINK, everybody, just as hard as ever you can.”