fatherly advice, for he suddenly realized her abysmal ignorance when he
saw her standing smiling with an air of pleased expectancy among all
these strangers, waiting, as she had said, to love them all and take
them all under her wing. Twice he started nervously to warn her--and
each time she interrupted him joyously.

"Doctor, just come and peep into this door! Look, millions and millions
of shiny rods and wheels and things. Oh aren't engines the most
beautiful things on earth? Look at them--not an inch to waste in them!
I wish I could be an engineer."

The next minute the first bell rang to warn visitors to be getting their
farewells over, and he started again, shyly and hesitatingly:

"Marcella--I'd be careful."

He was frightened of women-folk unless they were ill. He could talk to
Marcella about impersonal things very interestedly, but suddenly to
become fatherly was difficult. His mouth went dry, his face flushed and
he wished he had asked Aunt Janet to come with them.

She seized his arm eagerly.

"Oh look at the nice, kind little lifeboats! They're not much bigger
than Tammas's boat. Doctor, if we're wrecked isn't it a good thing I can
row and swim? Do you think we might get wrecked? I'd have that nice
little neat boat the third along and rescue the women and children! If
the boat gets full I'll hop out and swim--and if sharks come along I'll
tell them what Aunt Janet said about Hoodie. I think I'd be tough, don't
you?"