And Carol took up the words, screaming, "I will die! I will die! Don't leave me, Prudence. Don't shut me up alone. Prudence! Prudence!"
Down-stairs in the kitchen, three frightened girls clung to one another, crying bitterly as they heard poor Carol's piercing screams.
"It is pneumonia," said the doctor, after an examination. And he looked at Prudence critically. "I think we must have a nurse for a few days. It may be a little severe, and you are not quite strong enough." Then, as Prudence remonstrated, "Oh, yes," he granted, "you shall stay with her, but if it is very serious a nurse will be of great service. I will have one come at once." Then he paused, and listened to the indistinct sobbing that floated up from the kitchen. "Can't you send those girls away for the night,—to some of the neighbors? It will be much better."
But this the younger girls stubbornly refused to do. "If you send me out of the house when Carol is sick, I will kill myself," said Lark, in such a strange voice that the doctor eyed her sharply.
"Well, if you will all stay down-stairs and keep quiet, so as not to annoy your sister," he consented grudgingly. "The least sobbing, or confusion, or excitement, may make her much worse. Fix up a bed on the floor down here, all of you, and go to sleep."
"I won't go to bed," said Lark, looking up at the doctor with agonized eyes. "I won't go to bed while Carol is sick."
"Give her a cup of something hot to drink," he said to Fairy curtly.
"I won't drink anything," said Lark. "I won't drink anything, and I won't eat a bite of anything until Carol is well. I won't sleep, either."
The doctor took her hand in his, and deftly pushed the sleeve above the elbow.
"You can twist my arm if you like, but I won't eat, and I won't drink, and I won't sleep."