"I hope and pray that I may not, for I already have one invalid. I'm seriously frightened about Fenie. The only fault I've ever had to find with her was that she never would take things seriously, no matter how important they were, but now--oh, it seems as if all the seriousness of the Wardlow blood was concentrated in her, and all on account of the innocent blundering of that darling child. I know the affair is shattering her health, and sometimes I fear it is injuring her reason." "Nonsense! Give her a change of some kind, and she'll recover quickly. At present she doesn't love that fellow, although I suppose she thinks she does--girls as young as she are very likely to mistake mere interest in a man for something more serious. Take her, and Trixy, on a little trip somewhere--run down to Florida and back. This is just the season for such a trip." "Philip Highwood! You talk as if we were made of money. We haven't a fortune." "But we have, my dear; we have two fortunes. Fenie is one and Trixy is the other, and I don't intend to lose either, if I can help it." "A trip to Florida may cost all we've saved." "What does that matter, if it saves Fenie and Trixy for us?" Phil had his way in the end, for the good and sufficient reason that he and Trif loved each other so well that it took but a few moments' talk to make the way of one the way of both, no matter who devised it. The Florida trip cost Phil some pangs, for he had intended to start a country home in the spring--a modest one, but everything costs money in this practical world of ours. He did not look forward with pleasure, either, to being separated from his wife and child for a fortnight or more, for they had seldom been apart more than a single day; nevertheless, he kept all these things to himself, although he did much thinking about them. As to the travelers, Trif assured Fenie, in entire honesty, that Phil was dreadfully troubled about Trixy's health, upon which Fenie made haste to show that she really could think of more than one thing at a time. Trixy was informed, with equal care, but far more detail, that her Aunt Fee was quite ill, but that not a word was to be said about it in any circumstances, even to Aunt Fee herself. "I know all about it," said the child, her eyes filling with tears, "and I was the dreadful little girl that made her sick. I thought lots about it, and prayed lots about it, and cried whole pillows-ful about it, but it hasn't done any good." "Now is the time to do a lot of good, dear; you can mend your ways by trying to help mend Aunt Fee." So it was arranged that Trixy should regard herself as her Aunt Fee's one special nurse during the Southern trip, and that Trif should be physician, to be consulted whenever necessary, although the best medicine, for the invalid, Trif declared, would be some of Trixy's chat and play.