They stood for two or three moments more, looking at him with an anxiety that was altogether helpless. “Is your cold in your head, papa? Is it in your chest? Have you got a cough? Do you feel any pain? Shall I bring you some lozenges?” Poor Grace! she was cudgelling her brain to know what to do; but to ask questions was just the thing she was never to do. In the flurry and agitation of her feelings she forgot that. “There is nothing the matter with me,” said Mr Yorke. “I have got a little cold; that is all; not to-night; I felt it when we landed. Go to bed. You must be tired too.” “But, papa----” said Grace, gazing at him anxiously, helpless, with nothing to suggest, yet a scared consciousness that there was certainly something that she ought to do. He had the air of a man interrupted in something much more interesting than their girlish talk. A little pucker of impatience gathered in his forehead; but he was too serious to smile, or to make a joke of it, as he often did. And there was a flush on his face, and he was very hoarse, looking exactly as he did when he caught one of his _worst_ colds. “Well,” he said almost harshly, “have you anything particular to say? If not, you see I am busy. I should prefer to be left alone.” Grace’s anxious eyes were surveying him from head to foot. Milly, behind, plucked at her sleeve, meaning to convey some suggestion which she could not put into words. They wanted to do something--anything: but neither of them had the least idea what. Milly, who thus tried to prick her sister into exertion, was still more destitute than Grace was of any perception what to do. “Good-night then, papa,” said Grace slowly. She stooped over him to kiss him; and, oh, how hot his head was! One of his worst colds! and nobody here who knew what ought to be done, or what the danger was. “Good-night,” he said quickly. He gave a little sigh of relief as they went away, and turned back to the papers which he had hastily concealed. The girls saw this and it did not console them. They went back much depressed to the sitting-room, which had never been very bright, and which now was doleful beyond description. And this was their first night in England! Hearing, however, a furtive sob from Milly, Grace turned round upon her quite suddenly, and “snapped her up.” “Well!” she cried, “after all, it is not anything so very dreadful; papa has a cold; he has often had a cold before. He is busy with something. I don’t see why you should make a fuss about it. I dare say he had something to eat when he was out. An old friend would be sure to offer him something. Of course, he will be better to-morrow; and we had better take his advice and go to bed.” Now Milly began to cry in earnest. “We did not come to England all this long way,” she said, half miserable, half indignant, “only to go to bed.”