“He’ll be sick if you don’t look out, Miss Lola. He don’t know no more about takin’ care of himself than one of my sister’s babies.”
Lola laughed cheerfully as she looked with approval over the neatly arranged breakfast table.
“I think he is perfectly well, Maria, and quite delighted with himself this morning. He feels sure that he has made a wonderful discovery, something he has been working on for years. I know that he thinks it is going to be a fine thing for all the world and for us, Maria; he says it is going to make us rich.”
“I hope so, I’m sure. There’s lots of little things we’re needing in the kitchen,” said Maria practically. “Anyway, he’s the best doctor in the world, and he ought to have the most money!”
“Don’t get his egg too hard.”
“No, Miss, it will be just like he wants it.”
When the Doctor returned he found everything ready for his breakfast, and he stopped to greet Maria kindly, as he always did, for aside from his habit of rather old-fashioned courtesy she was a great favorite of his.
“Would you like a pan-cake, Doctor?” she inquired anxiously, as she stood beside the table. “There’s a Dutch lady boarding with my brother’s wife. She showed me how to make real German ones.”
“I can’t have you spoiling father,” reproved Lola gently. “Besides German pan-cakes are not supposed to be eaten for breakfast.”
“She knows no more about German food,” said the Doctor, “than an Irishman’s pig! You shall make me one of your pan-cakes to-night.”