was silly."

"Then I'd tell Jean, Marcella," said the doctor hurriedly. "If you're
not feeling well, just tell Jean, and maybe she'll be bringing you along
to see me." Then he added. "But to-night I'll send the lad along with
medicine for the neuralgia."

They talked about her father, then, and presently she surprised him by
saying earnestly:

"Doctor, why is it that people get ill?"

He laughed and chuckled at her puzzled frown.

"Well! There's a question to ask a man after his dinner. Do you know it
took me the best part of seven years at the hospital to learn the answer?
And even now my knowledge is not what you might call exhaustive."

"It seems so queer--mother being ill, and father; then Jean's headaches
and my neuralgia. And Wullie all twisted up."

The doctor let the reins drop on the horse's neck and lighted a very old
pipe. He had very little chance of a talk, and was glad to talk, even to
a girl.

"Just in those people you've mentioned, Marcella, you've almost every
cause of illness." He paused, puffed at the pipe and went on,
"Wullie--he was born like it."

"Yes. I know. It seems all wrong."

"It is wrong. It's a mistake," said the doctor slowly.

"Whose mistake?" she asked quickly.

"Ah, there you have me, Marcella. It was to answer questions like that
that men invented the devil, I believe; they like to say he put the grit
in the machine that turned out Wullie, and made him like that out of
perversity."

"But what do you say?" she said, looking into his face.

"I don't know. I think several things. For one thing, I like to imagine
that God, or Nature, whichever you like to call it--isn't a perfect
machine yet, and that we human beings can step in to help a bit."

"But how?"

"Wullie's father, I've heard, was drowned before he was born, and his
mother was too proud to tell when she was hungry. She used to go out
every night and take his place with the fishing boats, rowing, sitting
cramped, drawing the nets. We can help there by stopping that sort of
thing."

Marcella watched him, wide-eyed. She was completely mystified but so
full of questions that she could not find which one to ask first.

"That's what I'd have said when I was at the hospital, a young man. In
those days I dealt much more with cells and bodies than--than I do now.
Queer thing, Marcella--youngsters go for physiology mostly. When they
get older they see that there's more in psychology. I'm old now. Maybe
I'm more fo