was no scene, however. Father said in the most offhand way, as if
being obeyed was a matter of course, "Go back and tell your mistress that
I am carrying out her request, and that after luncheon I will send the
boy safely home, with a written message."

"But his medicines, his hour's rest alone in the dark, his special
food,--the medical man in New York said--" protested the woman,
completely taken aback.

"You heard my message?" said father, cheerfully, and that was all.

"What are you going to advise?" I asked, as in the middle of the
afternoon father came from his office, where he had given the lad a
thorough inspection.

"Simply to turn him loose in light woollen clothes, give him companions
of his age, and let him alone."

"Can't you word it differently?" I asked.

"Why, is not that fairly direct?" he replied, looking surprised; "and
surely the direct method is almost always the best."

"I think this is the one case where it is not, dear old Daddy. In fact,
if you are destined, as I see that you are, to pick up and tie the
threads of ravelled health in the Bluff Colony, you will have to become
more complicated, at least in speech, accustomed as they are to a series
of specialists, and having importance attached to the very key in which a
sneeze is pitched.

"Those few words would savour to the Whirlpoolers of lack of proper
respect and consideration. You must give a name to both ailment and cure
if you expect to be obeyed. Call the case a 'serious one of physical
suppression,' and the remedy the 'fresh earth cure,' to be taken only in
light woollen clothes, tell them to report progress to you every other
day, and you gain the boy his liberty."

Father laughed heartily, and his nose twitched in a curious way it has
when he is secretly amused and convinced against his will; but I think he
took my advice, at least in part, for the next morning Papa Vanderveer
drove down in the brake, announcing in a shout that "De Peyster slept all
night without waking up and crying, for the first time in months,"
adding, "And, Dr. Russell, if you've got anything further in this liberty
line to suggest, even to getting rid of the Duchess, now's your time.
'The Duchess?' Ah, she is that confounded head nurse woman that Maria
will keep so that things may be done properly, until the poor kid's
nearly been done for, I say. The Ponsonbys are crazy to get the woman to
break in their youngest girl and keep her down and from growin