By this time he had worked himself up into such a spasm of crying that he could not stop, for all little Elsie’s begging.  She wiped his eyes on the sheet with her little dimpled hands, and kissed him a dozen times.  Then I think she must have grown frightened at his sobs, for she slipped off the bed to the floor, “I’ll tell papa that you don’t want to go,” she said, trailing out of the room in her long white nightgown.  She had to hold it up in front to keep from tripping, and her little bare feet went patter, patter, down the long stairs to the library.  Wondering what would happen next, I followed her into the hall, and swung by my tail over the banister.

Doctor Tremont was sitting in a big armchair before the fire, with his head in his hands.  He looked very much troubled over something.  She opened the door, and ran up to him.

“Why, Elsie, child, what is the matter?” he cried, catching her in his arms.  “What do you mean by running around the house in your nightgown?  Doesn’t my little daughter know that it will make her cough worse, and maybe make her very, very ill?”

He started quickly up the stairs with her, to carry her back to bed.  She clasped her arms around his neck, and laid her soft pink cheek against his.  “Oh, daddy dear,” I heard her say, “Phil is crying and crying up there in the dark, and the monkey’s patting his head, trying to make him stop.  He’s crying because you don’t love him any more.  He said you didn’t kiss him good night, and you don’t care if he runs away, and he hasn’t a friend in the world but me and the monkey.  He feels awful bad about having to leave home.  Oh, daddy dear, please tell him he can stay!”

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT DAGO TOLD THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON SUNDAY.

As soon as Elsie was put back to bed, Doctor Tremont came into the room where I was still trying to comfort Phil, for I had skipped back to him when they started up the stairs.  Stirring the fire in the grate until it blazed brightly, he turned to look at Phil.  There was a long silence; then he said, “Phil, come here, my boy.  Come and sit on my knee by the fire.  I want to talk to you awhile.”

His voice was so kind and gentle that it seemed to me nobody could have been afraid of him then, but Phil climbed out of bed very slowly, as if he did not want to obey.  Wrapping him in a warm, fleecy blanket, the doctor drew him over to a big rocking-chair in front of the fire, and sat down with him on his knee.  I crawled back to my cushion on the hearth.

For a little while there was nothing said.  The old chair crooned a comforting lullaby of creakity-creak, creakity-creak, as the doctor rocked back and forth, with the boy’s curly head on his shoulder.  At last he said:  “You think that I am unkind, Phil, because I want to send your pet away, and cruel because I punished you for speaking rudely to your Aunt Patricia.  Now, I am going to tell you her story, and maybe you will understand her better.  The truth is, you do not understand your Aunt Patricia, or why many of the little things you do should annoy her.  I want you to put yourself in her place as near as you can, and see how differently you will look at things from her standpoint.