“Mr. Daniels,” she cried, brightly happy because David had consented to a doctor, and a doctor meant health and strength and the end of that hateful little cough.  “We are going to have a doctor see David.  What is the name of that man down-town—­the one you think is so wonderful?”

Mr. Daniels gladly gave her the name, warmly approving the move, but he shook his head a little over David.  “I am no pessimist,” he said, “but David is not just exactly right.”

“The doctor will fix him up,” cried Carol joyously.  “I am so relieved and comfortable now.  Don’t try to worry me.”

David looked nervous when Carol gave him the name of the physician she had called.

“He is a Catholic,—­and some of the members think—­”

“Of course they do, but I am the head of this house,” declared Carol, standing on tiptoe and assuming her most lordly air.  “And Doctor O’Hara is the best in town, and he is coming.”

“Oh, all right, if you feel like that about it.  I don’t suppose he would give me strychnine just because I am a Presbyterian minister.”

“Oh, mercy!” ejaculated Carol.  “I never thought of that.  Do you suppose he would?”

But David only laughed at her, as he so often did.

When Carol met the doctor at the door, she found instant reassurance in the strong, kind, clever face.

“It’s a cold,” she explained, “but it hangs on too long, and he keeps running down-hill.”

The doctor looked very searchingly into David’s pale bright face.  And Carol and David did not know that the extra joke and the extravagant cheeriness of his voice indicated that things looked badly.  They took great satisfaction in his easy manner, and when, after a brief examination, he said: 

“Now, into bed you go, Mr. Duke, and there you stay a while.  Get a substitute for Sunday.  You’ve got to make a baby of a bad cold and pet it a little.”

David and Carol laughed, and when the doctor went away, and David was safely in bed, Carol perched up beside him and they had a stirring game of parcheesi.  But David soon tired, and lay very quietly all evening, eating no dinner, and talking very little.  Telephone messages from “the members” came thick and fast, with offers of all kinds of tempting viands, and callers came streaming to the door.  But Father Daniels next door turned them every one away.

“He can’t talk any more,” he said in his abrupt, yet kindly way.  “He’s just worn out talking to this bunch,—­that’s all that ails him.”

Next day the doctor came again, gave another examination, and said there was some little congestion in the lungs.

“Just do as I have told you,—­keep the windows up, drink a lot of fresh milk, and eat all the raw eggs you can choke down.”

“He won’t eat anything,” said Carol.

“Let him fast then, and he’ll soon be begging for raw eggs.  I’ll see you again to-morrow.”