The next morning there could be no doubt of the fact that Sylvia was
really ill, and two days later Dr. Wells shook his head with
dissatisfaction after using his thermometer and stethoscope. He was a
conscientious man who lacked self-confidence, and the look of things was
disquieting to him.

"I think you ought to get a nurse," he said in the hall to Mrs. Gray as
he went out, "and probably she would like to have her own doctor from the
city in consultation, and some member of her family come to her. It looks
to me very much as if we were in for bronchial pneumonia, and she's a
delicate little thing at best."

Sylvia was laughing when Mrs. Gray, bent on being both firm and tactful,
reentered her room. "Tell Dr. Wells he must make his stage-whispers
softer if he doesn't want me to overhear him," she said, "and don't think
of ordering the funeral flowers just yet. I'm not delicate--I'm strong as
an ox--if I weren't I shouldn't be alive at all. Get a nurse by all means
if it will make things easier for you--that's the only reason I need one.
They're usually more bother than they're worth, but I know of two or
three who might do fairly well, if any one of them is free. My doctor is
an old fogey, and I won't have him around. As for family, I'm not as
greatly blessed--numerically or otherwise--in that respect as the Grays,
but my Uncle Mat would love to come, I feel sure, as he's rather hurt at
my runaway conduct." She gave the necessary addresses, and still
persisting that they were making a great fuss about nothing, turned over
on her pillow in a violent fit of coughing.

Sylvia was right in one thing: she was much stronger than Dr. Wells
guessed, and though the next week proved an anxious one for every member
of the household except herself, it was not a dismal one. Even if she