at a time? Their mamma thought so,
and the doctor thought so, and most of all, perhaps, nurse thought so.

But when they began to get really better, they themselves weren't so
sure about it. Maxie said to Dolly that he really thought it was rather
clever to have finished up all the illnesses at once, and Dolly agreed
with him, adding that their cousins had been nearly as long "with _only_
measles." But nurse, who heard what they were saying, reminded them that
instead of them "finishing up the illnesses," as Master Max said, it
might have been the illnesses finishing _them_ up. Which was true
enough, and made Max, who was the older of the two, look rather grave.

And then the getting better was _very_ long, especially as it was early
spring, and there were lots of damp and chilly days still, and for weeks
and weeks there was no talk or thought of their going out, and it was
very difficult indeed not to get tired of the toys and games their
mother provided for them, and _even_ of her very nicest stories.
Besides, a mamma cannot go on telling stories all day, however sorry she
is for her little invalids, and however well she understands that when
people, little or big, have been ill and are still feeling weak, and
"unlike themselves," it is very, _very_ difficult not to be discontented
and quarrelsome. So but for the nursery windows I don't quite know what
the children would have done sometimes.

The windows both looked out at the same side, which was a good thing in
some ways and a bad thing in others. Each child had a special one, and
as Dolly said to Maxie, "if yours had been at the back, you could have
told me stories of what you saw, and I could have told you stories of
what I saw."

"It couldn't have looked out at the back," said Max, who was more of an
architect than his sister, for he was two years older, "for it's there
the nursery's joined on to the house. It could only have looked to the
side, and the side's very stupid--just shrubs and beds, nothing to see
except the gardeners sometimes, and p'r'aps there'd have been a scroodgy
bit of seeing round to the front, so I'd rather have it as it is.
Indeed, if there had been one at the side, I wouldn't have had it for my
window at all."

[Illustration: "it was very difficult indeed not to get tired of the
toys & games"]

"You'd have had to," said Dolly, her voice sounding rather "peepy,"
"'cos I'm a girl, and I _hope_ you're a gentleman."

"I'm the eldest," s