‘Paulina is not so good, I am afraid,’ said Sally, with a frown and a severe wave of her spoon. ‘She doesn’t want to open her mouth for me. Perhaps I shall have to hold her nose, next time.’
‘How can you,’ asked Alice, ‘when she hasn’t any nose?’
‘S-s-sh-sh!’ said Sally. ‘I only said that to make her behave. I don’t think these children are getting well fast enough, Alice. You ride Dapple Gray for the doctor, and I will go downstairs for Tippy to come up and be the doctor for us.’
So Alice climbed on Dapple Gray and away she rode at a great pace to fetch the doctor, while Sally sped downstairs in search of Master Tip.
Presently back came Sally dragging with her sleepy Buff.
‘I couldn’t bring Tippy,’ she explained, ‘because he has been out all morning in the wet and Mother wouldn’t let him come in the house with his muddy feet. He wanted to come. He is jumping and barking at the back door now. But Buff will have to do instead.’
So Buff was marched up and down the sofa and made to look each sufferer in the face. But before he had time to say whether he thought his patients better or worse, there came a loud scratching of feet, a rush up the attic stairs, and across the room whirled Tippy, wet and muddy, to land with a thump on the sofa on top of the whole family of dolls.
‘Mi-e-ow!’ cried Dr. Buff in a fright, and took refuge on the window-sill.
‘Come down, Tip, come down,’ called Sally, stamping her foot; while Alice pressed her hands together in distress as she saw the pretty coverlet and the row of clean dollies spattered and spotted from one end to the other with mud.
‘Come down, come down!’ cried Sally again.