"She was a fine child," said Meldon, "until she got the whooping-cough. Since then she's been wakeful at night.--By the way, doctor, what do you think is the proper way to feed a child that has the whooping-cough? At the present time she's living chiefly on a kind of yellow drink made up out of a powdery stuff out of a tin which tastes like biscuits when it's dry. Would you say now that was a good food for her?" "You can rear a child," said the doctor, "whether it has the whooping-cough or not, on pretty near anything, so long as you give it enough of whatever it is you do give it." "I'm glad to hear you say that," said Meldon; "for my wife has a notion that food ought to be weighed out by ounces, so that the child wouldn't get too much at a time." "Did she get that out of a book?" "She did--a little book with a pink cover on it. Do you know it?" "I do not; but if I were you I'd burn it." "I did," said Meldon. "I burned it before it was a week in the house. If I hadn't been a good-tempered man, I'd have burned the baby along with it. She spent the whole of four nights crying, and that was before she got the whooping-cough, so there was no excuse for her." "It was hunger ailed her then," said the doctor. "It was," said Meldon. "I found that out afterwards, for she stopped crying as soon as ever she got enough to eat. If I'd allowed her to be brought up on the principles laid down in that book her temper would have been ruined for life, and she'd have been a nuisance to every one she came across." "I wouldn't wonder," said Doyle, "but it might be according to that book that Simpkins was reared. It would be hard to account for the kind of man he is any other way." "It might be that," said the doctor; "but I'd say myself it's more likely to be the want of beating when he was young that's the matter with him." "Will you stay and have a bit of dinner now you're here, Mr. Meldon?" said Doyle. "I wouldn't like your temper would be destroyed for the want of what I'd be glad to give you." Meldon looked at his watch. "Thank you," he said, "I will. It's one o'clock, and Sabina ought to have the bacon ready by now if she started cooking it the time I told her." CHAPTER VII.