ngs for me--beef-tea and beaten-up eggs and port-wine--but I hated
having them all alone and seeing her eating scarcely anything.

'I don't want these messy things as if I was really ill,' I said. 'Why
don't we have nice little dinners and teas as we used?'

Grandmamma never answered these questions plainly; she would make some
little excuse about not feeling hungry in frosty weather, or that the
tradespeople did not like sending often. But once or twice I caught her
looking at me when she did not know I saw her, and then there was
something in her eyes which made me think I was a horridly selfish
child. And yet I did not _mean_ to be. I really did not understand, and
it was rather trying to be cooped up for so long, in a room scarcely
bigger than a cupboard, after my free open life of the last three years
or so.

Dr. Cobbe came once or twice at the beginning of my cold and looked
rather grave. Then he did not come again for two or three weeks--I think
he had told grandmamma to let him know if I got worse.

And one day when I had really made myself feverish by my fidgety
grumbling, and then being sorry and crying, which brought on a fit of
coughing, grandmamma got so unhappy that she tucked me up on the sofa by
the fire, and went off herself, though it was late in the afternoon, to
fetch him herself. She would not let Kezia go because she wanted to
speak to him alone; I did not know it at the time, but I remember waking
up and hearing voices near me, and there were the doctor and grandmamma.
She was in her indoors dress just as usual, for me not to guess she had
been out.

I sat up, feeling much the better for my sleep. Dr. Cobbe laughed and
joked--that was his way--he listened to my breathing and pommelled me
and told me I was a little humbug. Then he went off into Kezia's
kitchen, where there _had_ to be a tiny fire, with grandmamma, and a few
minutes later I heard him saying good-bye.

Grandmamma came back to me looking happier than for some time past. The
doctor, she has told me since, really did assure her that there was
nothing serious the matter with me, that I was a growing child and must
be well fed and kept cheerful, as I was inclined to be nervous and was
not exactly robust.

And the relief to grandmamma was great. That evening she was more like
her old self than she had been for long, even though I daresay she was
awake half the night thinking over the doctor's advice, and wondering
what more she _co