to catch the doctor
before he went out. Wasn't it too bad? She wanted to know what to
do--whether it was any good trying to separate Anne and Serry from the
rest of us, and how soon it would show, and a lot of things like that.
For mother was an only child herself, and she always says she isn't at
all experienced about children. She's had to learn everything by us, you
see.

Well, she did catch the doctor, and came back looking rather jollier.
He had comforted her up. There were ten chances to one against the girls
having got it, he said; and as for separating them, now they had been
with us all, it would be nonsense.

Ah, well! doctors don't know everything. _I'd_ have separated them fast
enough, I know; and it would have been a good punishment for Anne and
Serena to have been shut up for a day or two; perhaps it would have made
them think twice before doing some wild, silly thing again.

So mums and I kept our own counsel. She told father, of course, but no
one else, not even nurse--it would only have made her nervous. We sent
round once or twice to ask how the little Nearns were--mums wrote notes,
I think, as she didn't want the servants chattering. And we were very
sorry to hear that the poor twins had got it after all, and rather
badly.

'So you see, Jack,' said mother, 'it wasn't any good separating them.
Dr. Marshall must know.'

I think this was rather a comfort to her. If the doctor had been right
about one thing, there was more chance of his being right about another.

And for two or three days we all kept quite well, and mother began to
breathe freely.

But, alas! I think it was about the fourth morning after that evening,
when I ran into the nursery on my way down to prayers, I found mother
there, talking to nurse. Mother looked very grave, much worse than
nurse, who didn't seem particularly put out.

'It's only a cold, ma'am, I'm sure,' she was saying. 'A cold soon makes
a child feverish and heavy. I don't think, indeed, there's any need for
the doctor; but it's just as you like, of course.'

Then 'it' had come. Poor mums! I stole up to her and slipped my hand
into hers. I understood, though nurse didn't. It was rather nice to feel
that I was mother's sort of confi---- I'm not sure of the word. But who
was it that was ill? My heart did go down when I heard it was not Anne
or Serry--really, I think I'd have said they deserved it--but poor old
Maudie! Sensible, good little Maud, who never did naug