Quite roughly again without smile or appreciation the Senior Surgeon took her by the shoulders and turned her out of the kitchen, and started her up the stairs.

“Are you an—­idiot?” he said.  “Are you an—­imbecile?” he came back and called up the stairs to her just as she was disappearing from the upper landing.

Then up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the Senior Surgeon began suddenly to pace again.

Only, for some unexplainable reason to the White Linen Nurse upstairs, his work-room didn’t seem quite large enough for his pacing this night Along the broad piazza she heard his footsteps creak.  Far, far into the morning, lying warm and snug in her own little bed, she heard his footsteps crackling through the wet-leafed garden paths.

Yet the Senior Surgeon didn’t look an atom jaded or forlorn when he came down to breakfast the next morning.  He had on a brand new gray suit that fitted his big, powerful shoulders to perfection, and the glad glow of his shower-bath was still reddening faintly in his cheeks as he swung around the corner of the table and dropped down into his place with an odd little grin on his lips directed intermittently towards the White Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl who already waited him there at either end of the table.

“Oh, Father, isn’t it lovely to have my darling—­darling Peach all well again!” beamed the Little Crippled Girl with unusual friendliness.

“Speaking of your—­’darling Peach,’” said the Senior Surgeon quite abruptly.  “Speaking of your ’darling Peach,’—­I’m going to—­take her away with me to-day—­for a week or so.”

“Eh?” jumped the Little Crippled Girl.

“What?  What, sir?” stammered the White Linen Nurse.

Quite prosily the Senior Surgeon began to butter a piece of toast.  But the little twinkle around his eyes belied in some way the utter prosiness of the act.

“For a little trip,” he confided amiably.  “A little holiday!”

A trifle excitedly the White Linen Nurse laid down her knife and fork and stared at him, blue-eyed and wondering as a child.

“A holiday?” she gasped.  “To a—­beach, you mean?  Would there be a—­a roller-coaster?  I’ve never seen a roller-coaster!”

“Eh?” laughed the Senior Surgeon.

“Oh, I’m going, too!  I’m going, too!” piped the Little Crippled Girl.

Most jerkily the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the table and swallowed half a cup of coffee at one single gulp.

“Going three, you mean?” he glowered at his little daughter.  “Going three?” His comment that ensued was distinctly rough as far as diction was concerned, but the facial expression of ineffable peace that accompanied it would have made almost any phrase sound like a benediction.  “Not by a—­damned sight!” beamed the Senior Surgeon.  “This little trip is just for Peach and me!”

“But—­sir?” fluttered the White Linen Nurse.  Her face was suddenly pinker than any rose that ever bloomed.