e
and up the stairs, and I had to shut the bedroom door hastily to keep it
out. Then I heard Polly pulling and pulling at it, and vainly trying to
shut it, and I had to go down to help her. She was some minutes away,
for she had difficulty in rousing her neighbour, and I sat beside the
unconscious child. He was talking the whole time, but I could
distinguish very little of what he said. It seemed to be chiefly about
going with his daddy in his boat, and every now and then he would call
out quite loudly, 'Come, daddy, come, daddy, to little John.'

When Polly returned with old Betty, I had again to go down to help them
to close the door.

'What do you think of him, sir?' said Polly.

I did not like to say what I thought, so I answered, 'Well, perhaps it
would be as well to get the doctor to have another look at him. I'll go
for him if you like.'

'I don't believe you could manage it, sir,' said Betty. 'You can't stand
outside; me and Polly has been clinging on to the palings all the way,
and it will be terrible up on the top.'

'Shall I try, Polly?'

She gave me a grateful look, but did not answer by words. But the two
women gave me so long a description of the way to the doctor's house,
and interrupted each other so often, and at length both talked together
in their eagerness to make it clear to me, that at the end I was more
bewildered and hopelessly puzzled than at the beginning, and I
determined to go to Mr. Christie before I started, in order to obtain
from him full and clear directions.

It took me quite ten minutes to reach his house, and I felt as if I had
gone through a battle when I arrived there at length, quite spent and
breathless. I saw a light in the lower room, and I found Mr. Christie
and his wife and children sitting in the room where I had passed through
so much the night before. Marjorie and little Jack were in their
nightgowns, wrapped in a blanket, and sitting in the same arm-chair. My
mother's picture was looking at me from the wall, and I fancied that she
smiled at me as I came in.

'What a terrible night!' said Mrs. Christie. 'The children were so
frightened by the noise of the wind in their attic that we brought them
down here.'

I told them my errand, and Mr. Christie at once offered to go with me
for the doctor. I shall never forget that walk as long as I live. We
could not speak to each other more than a few necessary words, we were
simply fighting with the storm. Then, to our dis