"Doctor," said Violette, putting her arms in a coaxing way on his shoulders, "may I prepare the plaster myself, as I have done it many times before, and I know so well how to do it." "Certainly," said Villebois, "nobody could do it better, get it by all means, and put it on as soon as your father is comfortably settled in bed." Violette, as soon as she had obtained the ingredients, set to work to prepare the plaster. It was quite late by this time, and the messenger had great difficulty in finding a chemist's shop open, to have the medicine made up. Violette loved nursing and felt a keen pleasure in doctoring her father. She acted on the principle that if one dose will do a certain amount of good, two doses ought to do twice the benefit, and accordingly she spread a very liberal amount of mustard on the linen. When all was ready she went upstairs to his bedroom, but by this time all the lights were turned off, and she crept cautiously along the passage to his room. She opened the door, and a faint light just enabled her to see where her father was sleeping. He was snoring away apparently in a delightful dream, and Violette, unwilling to awake him, did not turn up the light. So in the semi-darkness she tenderly laid bare his chest, and carefully spread the plaster over the surface. The sufferer uttered a groan, but did not wake. Violette wrapped him up snugly and bent down and gave her father a kiss on his forehead, when the light becoming suddenly brighter, she perceived to her horror that it was not her father at all, but Marcel. Terrified at her mistake she gave a little scream, and ran out of the room, the perspiration streaming from her forehead.