Page:A daughter of the rich, by M. E. Waller.djvu/50

 "That means that you want me to take that old, new tonic of yours."

"Yes, just that," said the Doctor, emphatically; "and now, as you don't appear to care to hear about it, I'm going to make a long call and tell you its entire history."

"Have you brought it with you?" asked Hazel, somewhat mystified.

"No, I can't carry around with me in a cab five children, a hundred acres of pine woods, a whole mountain-top, and a few Jersey cows."

"What do you mean? You are joking."

Then the physician clasped the thin hand a little more closely and told her of the country plan.

At first, Hazel failed to comprehend it. She gazed at the speaker with large, serious eyes, as if she half-feared he had taken leave of his senses.

"Did papa know it this morning?" was her first question.

"Yes, my dear."

"Then that is why he kissed me the way he did," she said thoughtfully. "But," her lip quivered, "I sha'n't have him to kiss me up there, and—and—oh, dear!" A wail went up from the canopied bed that made the Doctor turn sick at heart, and even the nurse hurried away into the dressing-room.

Somehow Doctor Heath could not exhort Hazel, as he had her father, to use common-sense. He preferred to use diplomacy.

"You see, Hazel, a year won't be so very long, and it will give your hair time to grow; and perhaps you would