"Good morning, Atom."
Nell bent caressingly over the bed, and laid her hand lightly on a cool little brow.
"Good mornin', Nell."
"You're better, asthore, you're better." There was a gay lilt to her voice that told her relief, her joy, more plainly than her words.
"Yes," the Atom said. "Will I get up now, Nell?"
"Oh, no, dear, you must wait till Dr. Everton has been. Do you ache anywhere now?"
"Only a little."
Nell looked down into the sombre eyes, then turned away.
Sheila Pat lay stiff and still, her small face frowning a little, solemn, mournful.
When Denis came cheerily in, she looked at him quickly, nervously, and her face flushed a little.
"Well, invalidish Atom, you'll soon be up and worrying me again, won't you?"
"Good mornin', Denis."
"Pardon. Good morning. Aren't you going to give me a kiss?"
She turned her face to his languidly. He looked at Nell and raised his eyebrows. Then he sat down on the bed and talked.
Sheila Pat lay very quiet and answered monosyllabically.
"You're very unkind to me, Atom, you know."
She gave him another odd little glance, and her face grew scarlet.
"I—I'm thinkin'," she stammered. "—I'm not unkind—"
"Of course you're not! I was joking. I must be off now. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
When he had gone, she lifted her head.
"Nell, when is Dr. Everton comin'?"
"Any moment."
"Nell—"
"Yes, dear?"
"I—I wish to speak to him—alone, please."
For a moment Nell looked startled.
"There isn't anything—you don't mean there's some pain you haven't told us of?"
"No. I'm quite well now."
"Very well. You shall, dear."
"Thank you."
Molly tiptoed into the room, knocked a photograph off the mantle shelf, bade the Atom a loudly whispered good morning, stood on one leg, then on the other, and tiptoed out again.
"Nell, isn't Dr. Everton here yet?"
"He will be presently, Atom."
"Will he come straight up to me?"
"Oh, yes."
"Are you sure? Perhaps he's talkin' to Aunt Kezia now?"
"I'll go and see," soothingly.
In a few minutes he came. Miss Kezia came upstairs with him, but at Nell's request she followed her presently from the room, and left the doctor and the Atom alone.
"Dr. Everton!"
"Yes, my dear?"
Pause.
He looked down at her surprised. Sheila Pat was breathing hard; her eyes were wildly eager.
"Something is troubling you," he said gently. "Tell me what it is!"
But she shrank back nervously into the bed.
"You see—I—"
"Well?" He felt the fluttering pulse again. "Tell me, little one."
"Was I—" Pause; then, with a burst, "Was I 'lirious last night?"
"Now, now, you mustn't get nervous—"
Her face stopped him. He rubbed his chin and studied her perplexedly. He was trying to discover what it was that she wanted.
"Was I?" She sat up, clung to the bed knob with one hand. "I—I thought I was!"
The expressive voice held a note of despairing doubt in the last words that helped him.
"Well, you were very feverish and," he was feeling his way, "you certainly didn't quite know what you were saying—um! Yes, you were delirious!" he finished with sudden heartiness. There was no doubting now what it was she wanted. At his words she sank down on to the pillow with a sort of little croon of relief.
"When a person's 'lirious she might say—say very foolish things—she might—ask for things—she'd be 'shamed to if she knew—"
He was sure of his way now. He pulled his chair closer, and his clever face softened.
"I should think so, indeed. Why, now, there was a young lady I was attending,—she was quite grown-up, too,—and when she is well she's a very sensible sort of girl, but she was delirious, and what do you think she kept crying out for? Why, an elephant—a real, live elephant!"
Sheila Pat laughed.
He took her hand into his.
"Oh, yes, people say and do very queer things when they are delirious. I had a big boy once who wanted a doll, and another who wanted to start for Australia." He paused as he felt the hand in his give a little jerk.
"Do persons—often want to—to go somewhere when they're 'lirious?"
"Very often. It's one of the commonest wants, little one."
Sheila Pat was smiling; she lay looking up at him, her face pale, tired, but very peaceful.
"You're going to be a good little girl, and keep very quiet, and take all your medicine—"
"I—I'm just goin' to be as good as—as snow-drops."
"Why snowdrops?"
She drew her brows together in thought. "I don't know: snowdrops are just good through and through."
He smiled.
"I do think you're such a nice doctor," Sheila Pat said earnestly.
When Nell crept in a few minutes later, she was fast asleep. When she woke, she took her medicine without a murmur.
"Is Denis home, Nell?"
"I think he's just come in. Yes, here he is."
He entered with a beautiful bunch of parma violets.
"With Lancaster's compliments. Aren't you proud, Atom?"
"They are very beautiful," but her eye was absent.
Nell took them and buried her nose in them.
"Denis, Dr. Everton says I was 'lirious last night."
"Poor old Atom."
"And—and he says when a person's 'lirious, they want elephants and Australia and—and to go to places—"
There was a pause.
The Atom turned her face a little away on the pillow.
"I remember—some—I—I didn't know what I was sayin', Denis—I—I wouldn't—have—said—it if—"
"Of course you wouldn't. We know that. But what I said holds good, Atom. If you want me to take you home for a few days, I will!"
There was silence in the room. Sheila Pat had turned her face to the pillow and buried it deep. Nell stood, the violets pressed against her cheek, waiting.
"No—thank you." It came with a little catch between the two first words, but firm, decided.
Denis bent his head suddenly, and whispered in her ear. She turned, stretched up her arms, and held him tight. Tears were running quietly down her face and dropping on to her nightgown, but Nell caught an ecstatically proud note in the whispered query, "Do you—really-truly—think I'm all that?"
When he had gone, she turned to Nell.
"Am I very heavy, Nell?"
Nell felt suddenly what a bit of a baby Sheila Pat was: she stroked her cheek gently.
"You weigh about as much as a good-sized robin. Why?"
"I do feel," wistfully, "I'd like to sit on your lap a little while!"
"Oh, petsums, come along."
She fell asleep almost directly.
That evening, wrapped in blankets, sitting in a large arm-chair, the Atom received three visitors.
Stewart came first. He was very subdued, shy of this white-faced Atom in the blankets.
He sat down and stared at her.
"You're to intertain me," she told him peremptorily.
Stewart, just about to speak, at this awful mandate flushed and collapsed.
Sheila Pat watched him relentlessly.
"Sure you English are queer! Mum! Mum! Mum!"
"Do you feel better?" he burst out.
"You know I do, else I wouldn't be receivin' visitors."
Silence.
"You're not intertainin' me," warned the Atom.
"I don't know how! I've never done it!"
"I think you're a very silly little boy, and you're not intertainin' me at all! You'd better go, I think."
He got as far as the door.
"Tommy, come back!"
He stood and faced her, his thin little body stretched to its utmost limit.
"I'm not a little boy!"
"Tommy, how's Peter?"
He came back eagerly.
"I say, what d'you think he swallowed yesterday?"
Ted Lancaster came next.
"Mayn't I pull your pig-tail?" he asked gently.
"'Tisn't any manners you English have got at all!" Sheila Pat retorted.
"Ah, that's all right. 'Pon my word, when I came in you looked so good, I was afraid I'd never be allowed to be rude to you again. May I hide that medicine bottle? I do hate medicine bottles. They carry me back to a sick room of my own."
She asked interestedly, "Were you 'lirious?"
"Rather!"
She sat forward, her face alight with eagerness
"Did you want a elephant and to go to Australia?"
"I don't know about the elephant. But I know I wanted to go to Australia, or anywhere else, so long as medicine bottles and beef-tea and thermometers didn't grow there."
She hesitated, her eyes never leaving his face.
"But—but did you—did you say things—"
He smiled.
"Yes, I said things, Sheila Pat!"
"Awful things? Things you'd never, never say when you were well?"
"I hope I shouldn't!"
A tired little frown creased her forehead.
"Did you—did you ask for things?"
"Oh, yes, heaps of 'em! I nearly wept because they wouldn't give me my organ into bed with me. And foot-balls—I was always begging for foot-balls. And one night I insisted on its being imperative that I should start off for Paris—"
Eagerly she interrupted, "Did you worry and worry?"
"They had to hold me down."
She lay back in the pillows; she gave a little excited laugh.
"Aren't persons queer when they're 'lirious?"
"Sheila Pat, catch hold!"
He tilted a brown-paper parcel into her lap.
"It's a book about horses, and there're plenty of photographs in it, so will you forgive its not being Irish? And remember that I hate being thanked, Sheila Pat. If you thank me for it, I'll kiss you. So now you know."
She was turning the pages with trembling fingers. He watched the expressive face as she bent over the beautiful photographs.
"Nell," Denis poked his head round the door, "may that conceited Atom receive another visitor? Mr. Yovil wants to see her."
"Yes, with great pleasure!" shrilled out Sheila Pat, excitedly.
She turned to Ted; she lifted up her face.
"I love it! I love it!"
"You're thanking me!"
He bent and kissed her.
"I'm jealous," Mark Yovil said sadly, as he entered the room. "He isn't half so nice as I am, Sheila Pat! You ask my mother. She's down in Devonshire, but we could send her a wire. And you've never been his Social Prompter, have you? Please send him away, Sheila Pat!"
"I will, anyway," Nell laughed.
Mark Yovil only stayed a few minutes. He looked at the Atom's excited face, her bright eyes, and talked quietly to Nell. Then he went.
For a quarter of an hour Sheila Pat studied her precious book.
Then Sarah appeared with a petition from Herr Schmidt for just a "beep at the little Miss Sheila."
He came in, laboriously tiptoeing, beaming.
"Ze poor little invalid! You are better, hein?"
Sheila Pat was very tired.
"I'm quite well, thank you," she responded, her manner exceedingly grown-up.
"There's only one thing about her that troubles us, Herr Schmidt," laughed Nell. "She's so good! She takes her medicine without a grimace! She's so meek and good I'm quite uneasy."
Sheila Pat fidgeted restlessly. She explained earnestly. "I'm not really good! I'm doin' it for—for a reason of my own."
Herr Schmidt seemed to think that exquisitely funny. He chuckled like a great fat baby.
"Ze funny little child!" he chuckled, "ze very funny little child."
He took off his spectacles, rubbed them with a gigantic handkerchief, and said, "Ach, I forget!" He fumbled in his coat-tail pocket; he dragged forth a limp and very much sat upon brown-paper parcel. He eyed it proudly.
"Ach, zat is why I zink her so nice for a bed! See, I sit on her, but it does not matter!"
"Great Scott!" ejaculated Denis in Nell's ear.
Herr Schmidt handed the parcel to Sheila Pat. He stood watching, beaming at her over his spectacles. Sheila Pat pulled off the paper; she gave a little gasp. There was a tense silence.
The present was a baby doll—a rag baby doll.
Nell quavered desperately, "What a fine colour it has!" And she averted her eyes hastily from the horrible, crimson-dabbed cheeks.
"You like her, little one?" Herr Schmidt's tone was anxious.
"Thank you," said Sheila Pat, in a subdued little voice. She stared fixedly into the fire, her head averted from the Thing in her lap.
"Ach, I zink berhaps she does not like it?" Herr Schmidt whispered loudly to Nell. "And I zink it so sweet!"
"She is tired. She has had too many visitors. It was so awfully kind of you to bring it for her, Herr Schmidt. I want her to go to sleep now."
Sweetly Nell sped his departure. When he had gone, Sheila Pat, still with averted head, dropped her knee till the doll slid to the floor. She looked up at Nell, outraged dignity in every feature.
"Please take the—carrion thing—away!"
And to Kate Kearney she presently whispered:—
"Oh, K.K., he's never forgotten! He thinks I'm a baby! And it's all that petticoat! I knew it!"