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."
Then, as Prudence remonstrated, "Oh, yes," he granted, "you shall stay
with her, but if it is very serious a nurse will be of great service.
I will have one come at once." Then he paused, and listened to the
indistinct sobbing that floated up from the kitchen. "Can't you send
those girls away for the night,--to some of the neighbors? It will be
much better."

But this the younger girls stubbornly refused to do. "If you send me
out of the house when Carol is sick, I will kill myself," said Lark, in
such a strange voice that the doctor eyed her sharply.

"Well, if you will all stay down-stairs and keep quiet, so as not to
annoy your sister," he consented grudgingly. "The least sobbing, or
confusion, or excitement, may make her much worse. Fix up a bed on the
floor down here, all of you, and go to sleep."