At that, Jane began to laugh "Oh, laws!" she exclaimed, sleeve to mouth once more. "Oh, I never heard the like of it!"
"Rar!" growled Puffy, delighted. "The plan is working! See her growl!"
"That flea went in one ear and came out the other," declared the little old gentleman, poking Jane with the toe of a worn shoe.
Jane laughed the harder. "Oh, it's awful funny!" she cried, rocking herself to and fro—and steadily increasing her girth. "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"We've proved that you're empty-headed," said Puffy.
And now the nurse was seized by a very paroxysm of mirth. Both faces distorted, she whopped over and over.
"That's right! Split your sides alaughin'," cried the Piper.
At these words, sudden terror showed on her face. For the first time she saw the trap into which she had been led!
Yet she could not check her laughter. "Oh, ho!" she gasped hysterically; "oh!—"
It was her last. Black sateen could stand no more.