"Constance Starr, I am ashamed of you! This is positively wicked. You know it is a law of the Medes and Persians that you change your shoes and stockings as soon as you come in when your feet are wet. Do it at once. I'll get some hot water so you can soak your feet, too. And you shall drink some good hot peppermint tea, into the bargain. I'll teach you to sit around in wet clothes! Do you think I want an invalid on my hands?"

"Oh, don't be so fussy," said Connie fretfully, "wet feet don't do any harm." But she obligingly soaked her feet, and drank the peppermint.

"Are your feet wet, twins?"

"No," said Lark, "we have better judgment than to go splashing through the wet old snow.--What's the matter with you, Carol? Why don't you sit still? Are your feet wet?"

"No, but it's too hot in this room. My clothes feel sticky. May I open the door, Prudence?"

"Mercy, no! The snow is blowing a hurricane now. It isn't very hot in here, Carol. You've been running outdoors in the cold, and that makes it seem hot. You must peel the potatoes now, twins, it's time to get supper. Carol, you run up-stairs and ask papa if he got his feet wet.

Between him and Connie, I do not have a minute's peace in the winter time!"

"You go, Lark," said Carol. "My head aches."

"Do you want me to rub it?" asked Prudence, as Lark skipped up-stairs for her twin.

"No, it's just the closeness in here. It doesn't ache very bad. If we don't have more fresh air, we'll all get something and die, Prudence.--I tell you that. This room is perfectly stuffy.--I do not want to talk any more." And Carol got up from her chair and walked restlessly about the room.

But Carol was sometimes given to moods, and so, without concern, Prudence went to the kitchen to prepare the evening meal.

"Papa says his feet are not wet, and that you are a big simpleton, and--Oh, did you make cinnamon rolls to-day, Prue? Oh, goody! Carrie, come on out! Look,--she made cinnamon rolls."

Connie, too, hastened out to the kitchen in her bare feet, and was promptly driven back by the watchful Prudence.

"I just know you are going to be sick, Connie,--I feel it in my bones.

And walking out in that cold kitchen in your bare feet! You can just drink some more peppermint tea for that, now."

"Well, give me a cinnamon roll to go with it," urged Connie.

"Peppermint is awfully dry, taken by itself."

Lark hooted gaily at this sentiment, but joined her sister in pleading for cinnamon rolls.

"No, wait until supper is ready. You do not need to help peel the potatoes to-night, Carol. Run back where it is warm, and you must not read if your head aches. You read too much anyhow. I'll help Lark with the potatoes. No, do not take the paper, Carol,--I said you must not read."

Then Lark and Prudence, working together, and talking much, prepared the supper for the family. When they gathered about the table, Prudence looked critically at Connie.

"Are you beginning to feel sick? Do you feel like sneezing, or any thing?--Connie's awfully naughty, papa. Her feet were just oozing water, and she sat there in her wet shoes and stockings, just like a stupid child.--Aren't you going to eat any supper, Carol? Are you sick? What is the matter? Does your head still ache?"

"Oh, it doesn't ache exactly, but I do not feel hungry. No, I am not sick, Prudence, so don't stew about it. I'm just not hungry. The meat is too greasy, and the potatoes are lumpy. I think I'll take a cinnamon roll." But she only picked it to pieces idly. Prudence watched her with the intense suspicious gaze of a frightened mother bird.

"There are some canned oysters out there, Carol. If I make you some soup, will you eat it?"

This was a great concession, for the canned oysters were kept in antic.i.p.ation of unexpected company. But Carol shook her head impatiently. "I am not hungry at all," she said.

"I'll open some pineapple, or those beautiful pickled peaches Mrs.

Adams gave us, or--or anything, if you'll just eat something, Carrie."

Still Carol shook her head. "I said I wasn't hungry, Prudence." But her face was growing very red, and her eyes were strangely bright. She moved her hands with unnatural restless motions, and frequently lifted her shoulders in a peculiar manner.

"Do your shoulders hurt, Carol?" asked her father, who was also watching her anxiously.

"Oh, it feels kind of--well--tight, I guess, in my chest. But it doesn't hurt. It hurts a little when I breathe deep."

"Is your throat still sore, Carol?" inquired Lark. "Don't you remember saying you couldn't swallow when we were coming home from school?"

"It isn't sore now," said Carol. And as though intolerant of further questioning, she left the dining-room quickly.

"Shall I put flannel on her chest and throat, father?" asked Prudence nervously.

"Yes, and if she gets worse we will call the doctor. It's probably just a cold, but we must----"

"It isn't diphtheria, papa, you know that," cried Prudence pa.s.sionately.

For there were four reported cases of that dread disease in Mount Mark.

But the pain in Carol's chest did grow worse, and she became so feverish that she began talking in quick broken sentences.

"It was too hot!--Don't go away, Larkie!--Her feet were wet, and it kept squshing out.--I guess I'm kind of sick, Prue.--Don't put that thing on my head, it is strangling me!--Oh, I can't get my breath!"

And she flung her hand out sharply, as though to push something away from her face.

Then Mr. Starr went to the telephone and hurriedly called the doctor.

Prudence meanwhile had undressed Carol, and put on her little pink flannel nightgown.

"Go out in the kitchen, girls, and shut the door," she said to her sisters, who stood close around the precious twin, so suddenly stricken. "Fairy!" she cried. "Go at once. It may be catching. Take the others with you. And keep the door shut."

But Lark flung herself on her knees beside her twin, and burst into choking sobs. "I won't go," she cried. "I won't leave Carrie. I will not, Prudence!"

"Oh, it is too hot," moaned Carol. "Oh, give me a drink! Give me some snow, Prudence. Oh, it hurts!" And she pressed her burning hands against her chest.

"Lark," said her father, stepping quickly to her side, "go out to the kitchen at once. Do you want to make Carrie worse?" And Lark, cowed and quivering, rushed into the kitchen and closed the door.

"I'll carry her up-stairs to bed, Prue," said her father, striving to render his voice natural for the sake of the suffering oldest daughter, whose tense white face was frightening.

Together they carried the child up the stairs. "Put her in our bed,"

said Prudence. "I'll--I'll--if it's diphtheria, daddy, she and I will stay upstairs here, and the rest of you must stay down. You can bring our food up to the head of the stairs, and I'll come out and get it.

They can't take Carol away from the parsonage."

"We will get a nurse, Prudence. We couldn't let you run a risk like that. It would not be right. If I could take care of her properly myself, I----"

"You couldn't, father, and it would be wicked for you to take such chances. What would the--others do without you? But it would not make any difference about me. I'm not important. He can give me anti-toxin, and I'm such a healthy girl there will be no danger. But she must not be shut alone with a nurse. She would die!"

And Carol took up the words, screaming, "I will die! I will die!

Don't leave me, Prudence. Don't shut me up alone. Prudence!

Prudence!"

Down-stairs in the kitchen, three frightened girls clung to one another, crying bitterly as they heard poor Carol's piercing screams.

"It is pneumonia," said the doctor, after an examination. And he looked at Prudence critically. "I think we must have a nurse for a few days. It may be a little severe, and you are not quite strong enough."