'I wish that I were dead and buried.'
'The bug always makes a chap feel like that, Meg.'
'It isn't the bug,' I answered, and cried against his sleeve. 'Oh, could you stop feeling hurt?'
'It depends how good you're to be in future,' said the giant, grinning. 'Will you do all the things I want you to, the next few days? Will you be a doormat just for once and let me trample on you because you've got the bug?'
'Yes,' I said meekly.
'Oh, my angel,' exclaimed my brother in great amazement, 'I do feel frightfully worried about you, I'm perfectly certain you'll be dead in the morning.'
So the list includes a nurse, no letters till I'm told I may, 'a willing spirit' as to letting the doctor decide when I am to get up, and millions of etcs. When I tell you that I took the whole lot 'lying down,' you will know to what deeps that bug has brought me. So I am a doormat, and Ross tramples on me.
One day Toby came to see me when I was feeling extra specially ill. Ross sent for him, I found out afterwards. And when he went away and Ross came back into my room he said,—
'Oh, Meg, you look heaps better, your eyes are shining so,—why, darling!' For the tears and smiles were all mixed up. But I couldn't tell him why just then, only Toby said he thought the stork might fly into my house again some day if I were careful.
CHAPTER XXVIII