"It has been very unfortunate. Epidemics have been strangely
inconvenient."

"Yes. First there was whooping cough here to destroy the summer
holidays; then came the Milsoms' measles, and I could not go and
carry infection. Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his
grandmother was too nervous to be left with him. And by and by some
one told her the scarlatina was in the town."

"It really was, you know."

"Any way, it would have been sheer selfish inhumanity to leave her,
and then she had a real illness, which frightened us all very much.
Next came influenza to every one. And these last holidays! What
should the newly-come little one from India do, but catch a fever in
the Red Sea, and I had to keep guard over the brothers at Weymouth
till she was reported safe, and I don't believe it was infectious
after all! Still, I am tired of 'other people's stairs.'"

"It is nearly five years since you have been with them, except for
that one peep you took at Weston."

"And that is a great deal at their age. Agatha was a vehement
reader; she would hardly look at me, so absorbed was she in 'The York
and Lancaster Rose' which I had brought her."

"She is rather like that now. I conclude that you will wish to take
them away?"

"Not this time, at any rate till the house is fit to put over their