"What can I do, Archie? Besides, they live in Tremont, so that really they don't concern us. She might have been frank, and have candidly admitted that little Letitia had sisters. But, perhaps, if you had to earn your living as a cook, dear, you would do the same thing under the same circumstances. We won't argue; I don't feel equal to it. Ah, here _is_ the doctor." Dr. De Voursney entered at that moment, and shook hands most amiably. His presence was generally reassuring, but I must admit that at present I felt no very wild sense of alarm. "Glad to see you, Mr. Fairfax,"' he said, rubbing his hands affably. "The little patient has a febrile disturbance, and I notice a stiffening of the parotid gland in front of the ear. I should say undoubtedly--in fact I can affirm--that it is a case of _cynanche parotidaea_." Letitia grew pale. "How horrible!" she exclaimed in a low voice. "Perhaps you could give it us in English," I suggested ironically. "Mrs. Fairfax is well versed in Latin, but medical phrases, I am afraid--" "Certainly--oh, certainly," he said, in irrepressible good humor. "I generally use Latin in apartment houses and reserve mere English for the tenements. _Cynanche parotidaea_ is very prevalent just at present. It is almost epidemic. Gentle laxatives and warm fomentations are really all that it is necessary to prescribe. In English, we call the malady, mumps." "Mumps!" I murmured. "Mumps!" exclaimed Letitia. "It is not serious, as you may perceive. It is painful and quite ugly to look at. I shall leave some directions with the mother and shall come in to-morrow morning." "Is it catching?" I asked anxiously. "Nothing more so--nothing more so," he replied cheerfully. "It is highly contagious. It spreads through schools, through apartment houses, with the rapidity of lightning." "Then you think that my wife might--" "I should say it was very likely--extremely probable," he declared, beaming upon us; "still it might be worse. Now, you know, scarlet fever, at present, is raging in this neighborhood. I have just come from a house where six little children are attacked, and the seventh has all the symptoms--" We bowed him out in a trail of depression, and stood looking at each other silently. Then Letitia slowly took off her hat and coat and I did the same, deposing my dress-suit-case in my bedroom viciously. Fate was not smiling upon us. Miriam came bustling in, with a grim, set face. She scowled as she saw us, and placed her arms akimbo, in the style made popular by fishwives, and _Madame Angot_. "I've packed off me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, and me daughters in a hurry," she said savagely. "Yer doctor says it's catching, and it's just me luck that Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred should have been here. Worse luck to it, say I! Me poor Letitia, a-prattling so cutely as she's laid low by the nasty disease." "It is not at all serious," murmured Letitia sympathetically.