Half the professional smile came flashing back to the White Linen Nurse’s mouth.

“Oh, I just adore holding people with iron braces on their legs,” she affirmed, and, leaning over the back of the seat, proceeded with absolutely perfect mechanical tenderness to gather the poor, puny, surprised little body into her own strong, shapely arms.  Then dutifully snuggling her shoulder to meet the stubborn little shoulder that refused to snuggle, to it, and dutifully easing her knees to suit the stubborn little knees that refused to be eased, she settled down resignedly in her seat again to await the return of the Senior Surgeon.  “There!  There!  There!” she began quite instinctively to croon and pat.

“Don’t say ‘There!  There!’” wailed the Little Girl peevishly.  Her body was suddenly stiff as a ram-rod.  “Don’t say ‘There!  There!’ If you’ve got to make any noise at all, say ‘Here!  Here!’”

“Here!  Here!” droned the White Linen Nurse.  “Here!  Here!  Here!  Here!” On and on and interminably on, “Here!  Here!  Here!  Here!”

At the end of about the three-hundred-and-forty-seventh “Here!” the Little Girl’s body relaxed, and she reached up two fragile fingers to close the White Linen Nurse’s mouth.  “There!  That will do,” she sighed contentedly.  “I feel better now.  Father does tire me so.”

“Father tires—­you?” gasped the White Linen Nurse.  The giggle that followed the gasp was not in the remotest degree professional.  “Father tires you?” she repeated accusingly.  “Why, you silly Little Girl!  Can’t you see it’s you that makes Father so everlastingly tired?” Impulsively with her one free hand she turned the Little Girl’s listless face to the light.  “What makes you call your nice father ’Fat Father’?” she asked with real curiosity.  “What makes you?  He isn’t fat at all.  He’s just big.  Why, what ever possesses you to call him ‘Fat Father,’ I say?  Can’t you see how mad it makes him?”

“Why, of course it made him mad!” said the Little Girl with plainly reviving interest.  Thrilled with astonishment at the White Linen Nurse’s apparent stupidity she straightened up perkily with inordinately sparkling eyes.  “Why, of course it makes him mad!” she explained briskly.  “That’s why I do it!  Why, my Parpa—­never even looks at me—­unless I make him mad!”

“S—­sh!” said the White Linen Nurse.  “Why, you mustn’t ever say a thing like that!  Why, your Marma wouldn’t like you to say a thing like that!”

Jerking bumpily back against the White Linen Nurse’s unprepared shoulder the Little Girl prodded a pallid finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse’s vivid cheek.  “Silly—­Pink and White—­Nursie!” she chuckled, “Don’t you know there isn’t any Marma?” Cackling with delight over her own superior knowledge she folded her little arms and began to rock herself convulsively to and fro.

“Why, stop!” cried the White Linen Nurse.  “Now you stop!  Why, you wicked little creature laughing like that about your poor dead mother!  Why, just think how bad it would make your poor Parpa feel!”