"Poor old lady! It's a shame to laugh at your big face! Shall I cry instead?" said Father.
"It wouldn't seem quite so heartless!" retorted his indignant patient.
Next day Merle received a letter, which was pushed under the door. It was all in rhyme, and as it was in Dr. Ramsay's handwriting she concluded that her father must have sat up late the night before courting the muse of poetry. His verses ran as follows:
MERLE WITH MUMPS
When Merle was suffering from the mumps
She felt most down and in the dumps;
Her friends, to cheer her up the while,
Laughed at her face to make her smile.
But eyeing with reproach her folk
She told them 'twas a sorry joke.
"Hard-hearted wretches," so she cried,
"To jeer while here upstairs I bide!"
Having no bad intent to tease her,
But wishing only just to please her,
Her family then ceased their jeers
And showed their sympathy in tears.
Her mother, who her pillow set,
Dropped tears and made the room quite wet,
And gurgled forth, "Alack-a-day,
That here upstairs with mumps you stay!"
Her uncle just outside the door
Sobbed till his chest was hoarse and sore,
And, swallowing in his throat some lumps,
He mourned, "My Niece has got the mumps"
The maids who came her plight to see
Splashed tears in cups of milk or tea;
The room it grew so very damp
Her limbs began to feel the cramp.