his collar.

"It certainly is hot enough now," he declared. "Open the windows,
Carol,--I am roasting."

"That is fever," she announced ominously. "Do you feel very badly?"

"Well, nothing extra," he assented grudgingly.

"David, if you love me, let's call a doctor. You are going to have the
grippe, or pneumonia, or something awful, and--if you love me, David."

The pleading voice arrested his refusal and he gave the desired
consent, still laughing at the silly notion.

So Carol sped next door to the home of Mr. Daniels, the fatherly elder.

"Mr. Daniels," she cried, brightly happy because David had consented to
a doctor, and a doctor meant health and strength and the end of that
hateful little cough. "We are going to have a doctor see David. What
is the name of that man down-town--the one you think is so wonderful?"

Mr. Daniels gladly gave her the name, warmly approving the move, but he
shook his head a little over David. "I am no pessimist," he said, "but
David is not just exactly right."

"The doctor will fix him up," cried Carol joyously. "I am so relieved
and comfortable now. Don't try to worry me."

David looked nervous when Carol gave him the name of the physician she
had called.

"He is a Catholic,--and some of the members think--"

"Of course they do, but I am the head of this house," declared Carol,
standing on tiptoe and assuming her most lordly air. "And Doctor
O'Hara is the best in town, and he is coming."

"Oh, all right, if you feel like that about it. I don't suppose he
would give me strychnine just because I am a Presbyterian minister."

"Oh, mercy!" ejaculated Carol. "I never thought of that. Do you
suppose he would?"

But David only laughed at her, as he so often did.

When Carol met the doctor at the door, she found instant reassurance in
the strong, kind, clever face.

"It's a cold," she explained, "but it hangs on too long, and he keeps
running down-hill."

The doctor looked very searchingly into David's pale bright face. And
Carol and David did not know that the extra joke and the extravagant
cheeriness of his voice indicated that things looked badly. They took
great satisfaction in his easy manner, and when, after a brief
examination, he said:

"Now, into bed you go, Mr. Duke, and there you stay a while. Get a
substitute for Sunday. You've got to make a baby of a bad cold and pet
it a little."

David and Carol laughed, and when the doctor went away, and D