He was a bluff, kindly fellow, with a bluff, kindly way, and he shook a big forefinger at her. "You have been carrying her up and down in your arms," he said. "Don't deny it." "No," she answered, "I won't deny it." "Of course," he said. "I know you--carrying her up and down in your arms, and singing to her and telling her stories, and holding her on your knee when you weren't doing anything worse. You'd do it if she were three times the size." She blushed guiltily, and looked at Janey. "Good Heaven!" he said. "You women will drive me mad! Don't let me hear any more about fashionable mothers who kill their children! I find my difficulty in fashionable children who kill their mothers, and in little simpletons who break down under the sheer weight of their maternal nonsense. Who was it who nearly died of the measles?" "But--but," she faltered, deprecatingly, "I don't think I ever had the measles." "They weren't your measles," he said, with amiable sternness. "They were Jack's, and Janey's, and Meg's, and so much the worse." "But," she interposed, with a very pretty eagerness, "they got through them beautifully, and there wasn't a cold among them." "There wouldn't have been a cold among them if you'd let a couple of sensible nurses take care of them. Do you suppose I'm not equal to bringing three children through the measles? It's all nonsense, and sentiment, and self-indulgence. You like to do it, and you do it, and, as a natural consequence, you die of somebody else's measles--or come as near it as possible." She blushed as guiltily as before, and looked at Janey again. "I think she is very much better," she said. "Yes," he answered, "she is better, and I want to see you better. Who is going to help you to take care of her?" "I came to try to do that," said Tredennis. Bertha turned to look at him. "You?" she exclaimed. "Oh, no! You are very good; but now the worst is over, I couldn't"-- "Should I be in the way?" he asked. She drew back a little. For a moment she had changed again, and returned to the ordinary conventional atmosphere. "No," she said, "you know that you would not be in the way, but I should scarcely be likely to encroach upon your time in such a manner." The doctor laughed. "He is exactly what you need," he said. "And he would be of more use to you than a dozen nurses. He won't stand any of your maternal weakness, and he will see that my orders are carried out. He'll domineer over you, and you'll be afraid of him. You had better let him stay. But you must settle it between you after I am gone." Bertha went downstairs with him to receive a few final directions, and when she returned Tredennis had gently released himself from Janey, and had gone to the window, where he stood evidently awaiting her. "Do you know," he said, with his disproportionately stern air, when she joined him,--"do you know why I came here?"