One morning Marian's throat was sore and she felt ill. The child dressed quickly and went down to tell Uncle George. Tilly the maid was at her home on a short visit, and Uncle George was building the kitchen fire.
"I've got the diphtheria," announced Marian, and there was terror in her face.
"Let me look in your throat," said Uncle George. "Why it looks all right, Marian, just a little red."
"I don't care, I feel sick all over," insisted the child, "and I tell you now and then, I know I've got it."
When Aunt Amelia was called she said Marian imagined that her throat was sore and as Marian ate breakfast, she was sent to school. The child went away crying. She didn't swing her little dinner pail around and around that morning just to show that she could do it and keep the cover on. Uncle George was inclined to call her back, but Aunt Amelia laughed at him.
"Any child," argued Mrs. St. Claire, "that could eat the breakfast she did, isn't at death's door, now you mark my words. She has let her imagination run away with her. Our darling Ella is far more apt to have diphtheria than that child. She would be willing to have the disease to get a little sympathy."
Marian felt better out in the fresh air and as she met Ellen Day soon after leaving home, the way to school seemed short. The chief ambition of Marian's school life was to sit on a back seat, yet from the beginning, it had been her lot to belong to the front row. The teachers had a way of putting her there and Marian knew the reason. It wasn't because she was the smallest child in the room, although that was the truth. Tommy Jewel used to sit on a front seat, too, and once Marian had to share the platform with him. The teacher said they were a good pair and the other children laughed. Possibly the memory of Tommy's mischievous face caused the teacher to notice how quiet Marian was the morning her throat was sore. The child sat with her elbows on her desk, her face in her hands, staring solemnly into space.
"Are you ill, Marian?" asked the teacher.
"No, Miss Beck," the child answered, recalling her aunt's remarks.
At last, conscious of pathetic eyes following her about the room and having heard of Aunt Amelia, the teacher again questioned Marian. "What is the trouble, little girl? Is there anything you would like to do? Would you like to write on the blackboard?"