"What nonsense!" exclaimed Juliet warmly. "There is no harm in the book."
"I am afraid there can be little good," said Hannah. "What a pity you do not read something more elevating! I wish I could persuade you to join our society."
Hannah was the secretary of a "Society for the promotion of solid reading."
"I thank you," said Juliet drily; "I have not the least desire to do so. This kind of reading is quite solid enough for me. I find uncle's theory with respect to a light diet excellent when applied to the mind."
At this moment, Mrs. Tracy looked up from the letter she was reading to exclaim, "Oh, Juliet! Your poor uncle! He is very ill. Mrs. Carroll has written to tell me so."
"Mother!" And the next moment Juliet was by her mother's side, and eagerly trying to read the letter.
It was the letter of a person to whom the inditing of an epistle was a rare and difficult undertaking, and it told its story with much circumlocution and apparent irrelevance. Its purport, when at last they succeeded in grasping it, was to this effect. Some days earlier, Mr. Tracy had been caught in a heavy shower, and had taken a severe chill. But he had refused to keep his bed, and had spurned all the remedies which Mrs. Carroll's wisdom could suggest. He grew steadily worse, but would not own that he was ill. Even when he was obliged to keep his bed, he would not allow his landlady to send for a doctor, or to acquaint his friends with his condition. But to-day he was so much worse as to be unconscious, and Mrs. Carroll had taken upon herself the responsibility of summoning a medical man; and now, having with some difficulty discovered Mrs. Tracy's address, she wrote to inform her of his illness.
"What a pity she did not telegraph!" said Hannah. "But these uneducated people always do such absurd things."
"I expect she was afraid of frightening me," said Mrs. Tracy. "It is very alarming, you know, to be summoned by telegram."
"She should have telegraphed to me," exclaimed Juliet excitedly; "I would have gone to uncle at once. I could have persuaded him to have a doctor. What will you do, mother?"