ds to her, to rock her to and fro on her
breast, and croon little songs and kiss her, and pat her face.

XVI

Her mother did not get better. Indeed, she got worse. In addition to
the lassitude of which she had complained she suffered also from great
heat and great cold, and, furthermore, sharp pains darted so swiftly
through her brows that at times she was both dizzy and sightless. A
twirling movement in her head prevented her from standing up. Her
center of gravity seemed destroyed, for when she did stand and
attempted to walk she had a strange bearing away on one side, so that
on striving to walk towards the door she veered irresistibly at least
four feet to the left-hand side of that point. Mary Makebelieve helped
her back to bed, where she lay for a time watching horizontal lines
spinning violently in front of her face, and these lines after a time
crossed and recrossed each other in so mazy and intricate a pattern
that she became violently sick from the mere looking at them.

All of these things she described to her daughter, tracing the queer
patterns which were spinning about her with such fidelity that Mary
was almost able to see them. She also theorized about the cause and
ultimate effect of these symptoms, and explained the degrees of heat
and cold which burned or chilled her, and the growth of a pain to its
exquisite startling apex, its subsequent slow recession, and the thud
of an india-rubber hammer which ensued when the pain had ebbed to its
easiest level. It did not occur to either of them to send for a
doctor. Doctors in such cases are seldom sent for, seldom even thought
of. One falls sick according to some severely definite, implacable law
with which it is foolish to quarrel, and one gets well again for no
other reason than that it is impossible to be sick forever. As the
night struggles slowly into day so sickness climbs stealthily into
health, and nature has a system of medicining her ailments which might
only be thwarted by the ministrations of a mere doctor. Doctors also
expect payment for their services--an expectation so wildly beyond the
range of common sense as to be ludicrous. Those who can scarcely fee a
baker when they are in health can certainly not remunerate a physician
when they are ill.

But, despite her sickness, Mrs. Makebelieve was worried with the
practical common politics of existence. The food purchased with her
last sevenpence was eaten beyond remembrance. The vital r