u are sickening
for scarlatina, tonsilitis, and housemaid's knee, but if you stay in bed
and have an invalid's breakfast I should say you would be fairly
convalescent by twelve o'clock. Snoddle down, and I'll see Nurse as
soon as I'm dressed, and put her on the track."

"I want Miss Everett!" sighed Rhoda plaintively, and Tom gave a grunt of
assent.

"I expect you do. All the girls want her when they are ill. She's no
time to spare, but I'll tell her, and probably she'll squeeze in five
minutes for you after breakfast. You are not going to die this time, my
dear, so don't lose heart. We shall see your fairy form among us before
many hours are past!"

Perhaps so. Nevertheless it _was_ good to be coddled once more, to lie
snugly in bed and have a tray brought up with a teapot for one's very
own self, and egg, and fish, and toast--actually toast! instead of thick
slices of bread-and-scrape. The luxury of it took away one's breath.
It was pleasant, also, to have Nurse fussing around in motherly fashion,
and hear her reminiscences of other young ladies whom she had nursed, in
days gone by, and brought back from the jaws of death. From her manner,
it is true, she did not appear to suffer any keen anxiety about her
present patient: but, as Rhoda looked at the empty dishes before her,
she blushingly acknowledged that, after all, she could not have been so
ill as she had imagined.

After breakfast came Miss Everett, sweet as ever, and looking
refreshingly pretty in her pale blue blouse and natty collar and cuffs.
If one did not know to the contrary, she would certainly have been
mistaken for one of the elder girls, and her manner was delightfully
unprofessional.

"Well, my poor dear, this is bad news! I _was_ sorry when Tom told me.
What is it?--headache--back-ache--pain in your throat?"

Rhoda stretched herself lazily and considered the question.

"A kind of general all-overishness, if you know what that means. I feel
played out. I tried to get up, but it was no use, I simply couldn't
stand. I feel as if I had no back left--as weak as a kitten."

Miss Everett looked at her quietly, then her eye roved round the room
and rested meaningly on half-a-dozen pieces of paper fastened up in
conspicuous positions. One sheet was tacked into the frame of the
looking-glass, another into a picture, a third pinned against the
curtain, and each was covered with Rhoda's large writing, easily legible
across the few yards o