"Where did you borry the milk and nut-cake?" asked her mother wonderingly.
"I didn't borry them," replied Amarilly stoically. "I stole them."
"Stole them! Am-a-ril-ly Jenk-ins!"
"Twan't exackly stealin'," argued Amarilly cheerfully. "I took the milk from two little cats what git stuffed with milk every morning and night. The doughnut had jest been stuck in a parrot's cage. He hedn't tetched it. My! he swore fierce! I'd ruther steal, anyway, than let Iry and Co go hungry."
"What would the preacher say!" demanded her mother solemnly. "He would say it was wrong."
"He don't know nothin' about bein' hungry!" replied Amarilly defiantly.
"If he was ever as hungry as Iry, I bet he'd steal from a cat."
The season was now summer. Some time ago John Meredith had gone to the seashore and the King family to their summer home in the mountains, unaware that the fever had spread over so wide an area in the Jenkins domain. The theatre and St. Mark's were closed for the rest of the summer. The little boys found that their positions had been filled during the period of quarantine. None of these catastrophes, however, could be compared to the calamity of the realization that Bud alone of all the patients had not convalesced completely. He was a delicate little fellow, and he grew paler and thinner each day. In desperation Amarilly went to the doctor.
"Bud don't pick up," she said bluntly.
"I feared he wouldn't," replied the doctor.
"Can't you try some other kinds of medicines?"