always send Jehosophat and Hepzebiah into the spare room to sleep, and
she would come herself and lie down in Jehosophat's bed, right next to
the little sick boy, right where he could reach out his hand and place
it in hers. That was "most worth" all the aches and the pains.

It was all right to have Father near, but somehow Marmaduke felt
better if it was Mother that lay by his side. Her hands and her voice
were sort of cool and they drove the bad things that came in his
dreams far away.

There was one other fine thing about being sick the Fairy Lamp!

At least that was what the children had named it. It was really a
little blue bowl, not light blue like his oatmeal bowl, but almost as
blue as periwinkles, or the sky some nights. It had little creases on
the outside, "flutings," Mother said, like the pleats in her dress.
Inside the bowl was a thick white candle, and it had a curly black
wick like a kewpie's topknot.

Now Mother wanted to make sponge for the bread, but Marmaduke
pleaded,--

"I want you to stay with me, I feel so sick."

"Wouldn't my little boy let me go--just for five minutes?"

He thought that over for a little while. Then, "Yes," he said slowly,
"if you light the Fairy Lamp."

So she struck the match and touched it to the wick. The wick always