Orion pressed his lips very tightly together.

“You’ll take the medicine for me, Orion?” said Iris.

“No, I can’t,” he moaned.

“Oh, but, darling! just try and think.  Remember you are a giant—­a grand, great giant, with your girdle and your sword, and this medicine is just an enemy that you have got to conquer.  Here now; open your mouth and get it down.  Think of mother, Orion.  She would like you to take it.”

Orion still kept his mouth very firmly shut, but he opened his sweet, dark eyes and looked full at his sister.

“Would mother really like it?” he said at last, in a whisper.

“Of course; it would make her ever so happy.”

“And will she know about it, Iris?”

“I think she will.  Maybe she is in the room with us just now.”

“Oh, lor’! what awful talk to say to the child,” murmured Simpson to herself.

“If I really thought mother could see, and if I really thought—­” began the little boy.

“Yes, yes, she can see!” said Iris, going on her knees and clasping both the little fellow’s hands in one of hers.  “She can see, she does know, and she wants her own brave giant to be a giant to the end.  Now, here is the enemy; open your mouth, conquer it at one gulp.”

“Well, to be sure,” whispered Simpson.

Orion, however, did not glance at Simpson.  He gazed solemnly round the room as if he really saw someone; then he fixed his brown eyes on his sister’s face, then he opened his mouth very wide.  She instantly took the cup and held it to the little lips.  Orion drained off the nauseous draught and lay back, panting, on his pillow.

“It was a big thing to conquer.  I am a fine giant,” he said, when he returned the empty cup to Iris.

“Yes, you are a splendid old chap,” she replied.

At that moment Mrs. Dolman and Miss Ramsay entered the room.

“Has Orion taken his medicine?” said Mrs. Dolman.  “Iris, my dear, what are you doing here?”

“I am very sorry, Aunt Jane,” replied Iris, “but I had to come.  He would never have taken his medicine but for me.  I had to remind him—­”

“To remind him of his duty.  He certainly wanted to be reminded.  So he has taken the medicine.  I am glad of that; but all the same, Iris, you did very wrong to leave the schoolroom.”

“Please forgive me this one time, Aunt Jane.”

“I really think Iris does try to be a good child,” interrupted Miss Ramsay.

“And she certainly can manage her little brother, ma’am,” said Simpson, speaking for the first time.  “He would not touch his medicine for me—­no, not for anything I could do; but he drank it off when Miss Iris talked some gibberish, all about giants and belts and swords.”

“’Tisn’t gibberish,” said Orion, starting up from his pillow; “it’s the truest thing in all the world.  I am a giant, and I has got a belt and a sword.  You can look up in the sky on starful nights and you can see me.  ’Tisn’t gibberish.”