resolved to be gentler still. He sat for ten minutes in
abstraction after Henrietta had gone; and then, rising abruptly, picked
up the chart, went down the long hall, pushed aside the light green
curtain that swung in front of a door, and passed into the sick-room.

Kern lay alone with her geraniums, awning, whirring fan, and other
ladylike appurtenances. Mr. V.V. sat down by the white iron bed and
introduced a thermometer into her mouth. He possessed himself of her
wrist, took out his silver watch and presently wrote something on the
chart. He took out the thermometer and again jotted upon the chart. Then
he gave the patient two tablespoonfuls of peptonoids. All this in
silence. And then Kern said in a whimpering little voice:

"Mr. V.V., I'm so _hongry_."

"I know it, poor child. Just a little more patience now: you're going to
begin to get better right away, and before you know it you'll be sitting
down to the finest dinners that ever you popped into your mouth. Ring
the bell and order what you like--stuff, stuff, stuff--banquets all day
long. And that reminds me," said he, hurrying away from this too
toothsome subject--"your holiday, as soon as you feel strong enough to
travel. It's high time we were making pretty definite plans about that.
The question is, what sort of place do you think you'd like to go to?"

"Oh!... Do you mean--any place--go to _any_ place I like?"

"Any place in the world," replied Mr. V.V., the magnificent.

Kern thought for some time, her eyes on the window, and then said:

"I'd like to go to some place where there's mountains and a sea." She
added, as if to soften the baldness of her specifications, the one
word: "Like."

Mr. V.V. thought of Marathon, which on the whole didn't promise to suit.
He was visited with an ingenious idea, viz.: that Kern should go to no
less than two places on her convalescent tour, one containing Mountains,
the other containing a Sea! And so it was settled to the general
satisfaction....

"Only hurry up and get well," said the tall doctor, "or you'll find the
crowds gone from Atlantic City before you get there."

He had risen, but paused, looking down at the flushed little face in
which the sunken dark eyes looked bigger than ever. Thoughts of himself
were in his mind; and they were not pleasant thoughts.

"Kern," said he--for he had by now fallen into the family habit,
abandoning the too stately Corinne--"suppose you were absolutely well,
and had a th