Chapter V: "poor Little Lad."

Geoffrey could not fail to acknowledge to himself that after all, Nurse had been wise in putting Dodie into a frock with high neck and long sleeves, for the winter was unusually severe.

Snow lay for several days some inches thick in the garden, and though the boys enjoyed the snowballing well enough, and were able to keep themselves thoroughly warm, little Dodie seemed to feel the cold very acutely, and often came in from her daily walk crying from the pain of freezing fingers.

In fact, the child did not seem herself, and Nurse began to grow uneasy about her, particularly as in seven days' time, Major Fortescue was expected and she was naturally anxious that all the children should be looking their best on his arrival.

In Geoffrey's eyes, Dodie seemed to be growing thinner and smaller altogether, and a terrible fear seized him lest she was going to be ill, and would be so when his Father arrived.

As the days past, he gave up snowballing, and spent his time in the nursery with Dodie, who was not allowed out.

"I think the cold has struck her," said Nurse, as one day she altogether refused to eat her dinner. "I've a mind to send for Dr. Booth, the powders I've been giving her don't seem to be what she wants."

Geoffrey laid down his knife and fork, feeling a sudden disinclination for the mutton and dumplings before him.

"Do you think Dodie is going to be ill?" he asked anxiously.

"I hope not, my dear, but it ain't like her to turn away from her food, and she has a nasty little cough that don't get better. Anyways I'll ask Dr. Booth to look in, there can't be no harm in that. There, there my darling," she added, taking Dodie on to her knee, "don't cry, there's a pet."

Nurse looked down at Dodie's little face which was lying on her arm.

"I don't like the look of her," she murmured more to herself than to anyone else, "her eyes are too bright to be natural, and she's restless, poor little dear." Then louder she added, "Geoff, you might run down when you've finished your dinner and ask the doctor to be so good as to look in. You'd catch him before he starts out on his rounds if you're quick."

Geoffrey, who had listened with a beating heart to all Nurse had said, sprang up at once, and not heeding Nurse's injunction to finish his dinner first, ran off at once for the Doctor, and returned again in an incredibly short time.

To his excited imagination, the few minutes that elapsed between leaving the message at the doctor's door and his arrival seemed hours, and then at last his ring was heard, and a minute after, he stood looking at Dodie, who still lay in nurse's arms.

Geoff did not move his eyes from his face, till Nurse suddenly looking up and becoming conscious of the three little listeners who stood around, ordered them all peremptorily out of the room. Geoffrey, however, waylaid the Doctor as he left.

"Dr. Booth," he said, standing with his hands thrust deeply in his pockets, and looking earnestly up into the Doctor's face as he put on his coat in the hall, "will Dodie be well by the time Father comes home?"

The Doctor shook his head somewhat ominously.

"That I can't tell you, my boy," he answered, as he buttoned up his coat and smoothed his collar, "with care I hope your little sister will get well before very long—but it will require care—and I can't say exactly when she will be herself again."

"Is she going to be very ill?" asked Geoff.

The doctor turned away somewhat hurriedly from the anxious face looking up into his, and fidgeted a little nervously with his hat before putting it on. Then clearing his throat, he looked round again and patted the boy on the head saying, kindly:

"Care and physic do wonderful things, my boy—for all I know, your little sister will be having a game of snowballing with you this day week."

"I do hope she'll be well by the time Father comes," said Geoff with a sigh.

"Oh well—who knows!" said Dr. Booth jovially—and ramming his hat on his head, he nodded to Geoff, and in a minute more was driving away from the house, but not away from the remembrance of those anxious eyes that had been raised so beseechingly to him,—which remembrance made him shake his head, murmuring "poor little lad."

When Geoff went up to the nursery, he saw Nurse had been crying, but when he asked what the Doctor really thought of Dodie, she told him she had no time to talk and that he had better go down to the other boys in the schoolroom as Dodie had to go straight to bed, and mustn't be disturbed by any noise.

Geoffrey did as he was bid, but with a heavy heart, feeling quite sure that Nurse's tears meant that Dodie was very ill. He could not play with Forbes and Jack, or even read, but sat by the fire, looking silently at the red coals, for an hour or more.

It was the greatest relief when Nurse at last came down and told him he might go upstairs and watch by Dodie's crib while she had her tea, and that was the beginning of a continual watching on the boy's part. Nurse finding how gentle and tender he was, and how noiselessly he could move about when he liked, did not object to his spending many hours by Dodie's crib, and indeed, in her great anxiety, she began to be thankful for the boy's presence. For the Doctor's report of Dodie had been serious. The child had caught a chill, and before many hours were over, Bronchitis declared itself, and notwithstanding the care and physic from which the doctor had hoped such great things, on Christmas Eve little Dodie went to Heaven with a smile on her face, and stretching out her little hands as if someone had come to fetch her.

"I think Mother must have come for her," said Geoffrey in a low voice, as they stood round the schoolroom fire talking about it all.

"Yes," said Jack between his sobs, "Perhaps she was sent to fetch her, lest she should be afraid of all the new people in Heaven. Even kind Abraham might frighten her a little, she was always afraid of people with beards—but she wouldn't mind them a bit, if Mother fetched her."

Geoffrey nodded quietly. He did not cry. He had not shed a tear.

When once little Dodie had breathed her last, all sense of his own loss vanished in the overwhelming thought of what his Father's sorrow would be, when he found Dodie had gone.