Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred paid little attention to her plaints; and the former, having done what she could, returned to her own family cares.  Mildred took the little sick boy in her arms, saying that she would hold him while Mrs. Ulph prepared breakfast.

It was at this stage of affairs that the door opened, and the pinched and grizzled visage of Mr. Ulph appeared, followed by the burly form of a German physician whom he had insisted on finding.  The former stopped short and stared at Mildred, in grim hesitation whether he should resent an intrusion or acknowledge a kindness.  His wife explained rapidly in German, with a deferential manner, but in a sub-acidulous tone.

“I do not wish to intrude, but only to help as a neighbor should,” Mildred began, during a lull between Mrs. Ulph’s shrill notes.  “I fear your little boy was very ill when I first came—­indeed my mother thought he was dying.  She knows, I think, for my little brother nearly died of an attack like this.”

Beyond her explanation of Mildred’s presence he seemingly had given no heed to his wife’s words, but now he started and exclaimed, “Mein Gott!  Vat you say?  Die?” and he turned with intense anxiety to the doctor, who without ceremony began to investigate the case, asking the mother questions and receiving answers that Mildred did not understand.  The woman evidently claimed all the credit she deserved for her care of the patient in the night, and suggested that Mr. Ulph had been very oblivious until the child seemed sinking, for the old man grew excessively impatient during the interrogations.  As if unconscious of Mildred’s ignorance of their language, he said earnestly to her, “I did not know—­I vould gif my life for der schild—­der boor leedle poy—­I no dink dat he vas so sick,” and his eager words and manner convinced Mildred that his wife misrepresented him, and that his interest in the mystery of the comet’s fate would be slight compared with that which centred in his son.

The phlegmatic physician continued his investigations with true German thoroughness and deliberation.  It was well that the child’s worst symptoms had been relieved before he came, for he seemed bent on having the whole history of the case down to the latest moment before he extended his heavy hand to the aid of nature, and he questioned Mildred as minutely as he had Mrs. Ulph, while she, unlike the former, did not take any credit to herself.

If the doctor was a little slow, he was sure, for he said something emphatically to the father, who in turn seized Mildred’s hand, exclaiming, with explosive energy, “Gott pless you!  Gott pless you!”

“But it was mamma who did everything,” protested the young girl.

“Yah, I know, I know; put who prought mamma?  Who listen ven der boor leetle poy gry in der night?  Who gome in der morning?  Mine paby vould haf been ded if you haf not gome.  Gott pless you; Gott pless your moder.  I vant to dank her mooch.”