第13章 The old gentleman(4)

In the early morning Bobbie heard her name and jumped out of bed and ran to Mother's bedside.

"Oh--ah, yes--I think I was asleep," said Mother."My poor little duck, how tired you'll be--I do hate to give you all this trouble.""Trouble!" said Bobbie.

"Ah, don't cry, sweet," Mother said; "I shall be all right in a day or two."And Bobbie said, "Yes," and tried to smile.

When you are used to ten hours of solid sleep, to get up three or four times in your sleep-time makes you feel as though you had been up all night.Bobbie felt quite stupid and her eyes were sore and stiff, but she tidied the room, and arranged everything neatly before the Doctor came.

This was at half-past eight.

"Everything going on all right, little Nurse?" he said at the front door."Did you get the brandy?""I've got the brandy," said Bobbie, "in a little flat bottle.""I didn't see the grapes or the beef tea, though," said he.

"No," said Bobbie, firmly, "but you will to-morrow.And there's some beef stewing in the oven for beef tea.""Who told you to do that?" he asked.

"I noticed what Mother did when Phil had mumps.""Right," said the Doctor."Now you get your old woman to sit with your mother, and then you eat a good breakfast, and go straight to bed and sleep till dinner-time.We can't afford to have the head-nurse ill."

He was really quite a nice doctor.

When the 9.15 came out of the tunnel that morning the old gentleman in the first-class carriage put down his newspaper, and got ready to wave his hand to the three children on the fence.But this morning there were not three.There was only one.And that was Peter.

Peter was not on the railings either, as usual.He was standing in front of them in an attitude like that of a show-man showing off the animals in a menagerie, or of the kind clergyman when he points with a wand at the 'Scenes from Palestine,' when there is a magic-lantern and he is explaining it.

Peter was pointing, too.And what he was pointing at was a large white sheet nailed against the fence.On the sheet there were thick black letters more than a foot long.

Some of them had run a little, because of Phyllis having put the Brunswick black on too eagerly, but the words were quite easy to read.

And this what the old gentleman and several other people in the train read in the large black letters on the white sheet:--LOOK OUT AT THE STATION.

A good many people did look out at the station and were disappointed, for they saw nothing unusual.The old gentleman looked out, too, and at first he too saw nothing more unusual than the gravelled platform and the sunshine and the wallflowers and forget-me-nots in the station borders.It was only just as the train was beginning to puff and pull itself together to start again that he saw Phyllis.She was quite out of breath with running.

"Oh," she said, "I thought I'd missed you.My bootlaces would keep coming down and I fell over them twice.Here, take it."She thrust a warm, dampish letter into his hand as the train moved.

He leaned back in his corner and opened the letter.This is what he read:--"Dear Mr.We do not know your name.