And yet—­did you ever hear of such a case before?—­although Elizabeth Ann when she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little jerk and said:  “There’s nothing in the world the matter with that child.  She’s as sound as a nut!  What she needs is ...”—­he looked for a moment at Aunt Frances’s thin, anxious face, with the eyebrows drawn together in a knot of conscientiousness, and then he looked at Aunt Harriet’s thin, anxious face with the eyebrows drawn up that very same way, and then he glanced at Grace’s thin, anxious face peering from the door waiting for his verdict—­and then he drew a long breath, shut his lips and his little black case very tightly, and did not go on to say what it was that Elizabeth Ann needed.

Of course Aunt Frances didn’t let him off as easily as that, you may be sure.  She fluttered around him as he tried to go, and she said all sorts of fluttery things to him, like “But, Doctor, she hasn’t gained a pound in three months ... and her sleep ... and her appetite ... and her nerves ...”

[Illustration:  Elizabeth Ann stood up before the doctor.]

The doctor said back to her, as he put on his hat, all the things doctors always say under such conditions:  “More beefsteak ... plenty of fresh air ... more sleep ...  SHE’ll be all right ...” but his voice did not sound as though he thought what he was saying amounted to much.  Nor did Elizabeth Ann.  She had hoped for some spectacular red pills to be taken every half-hour, like those Grace’s doctor gave her whenever she felt low in her mind.

And just then something happened which changed Elizabeth Ann’s life forever and ever.  It was a very small thing, too.  Aunt Harriet coughed.  Elizabeth Ann did not think it at all a bad-sounding cough in comparison with Grace’s hollow whoop; Aunt Harriet had been coughing like that ever since the cold weather set in, for three or four months now, and nobody had thought anything of it, because they were all so much occupied in taking care of the sensitive, nervous little girl who needed so much care.

And yet, at the sound of that little discreet cough behind Aunt Harriet’s hand, the doctor whirled around and fixed his sharp eyes on her, with all the bored, impatient look gone, the first time Elizabeth Ann had ever seen him look interested.  “What’s that?  What’s that?” he said, going over quickly to Aunt Harriet.  He snatched out of his little bag a shiny thing with two rubber tubes attached, and he put the ends of the tubes in his ears and the shiny thing up against Aunt Harriet, who was saying, “It’s nothing, Doctor ... a little teasing cough I’ve had this winter.  And I meant to tell you, too, but I forgot it, that that sore spot on my lungs doesn’t go away as it ought to.”