Dr. Forsyth had more than a practitioner’s interest in the Corner House girls. He had been treating Ruth and Agnes for their colds already. And when he heard over the telephone that they had been out into the country on this terrible night, he declared his intention of coming right over.
Dr. Forsyth had only turned away from his telephone, shivering a little in his bathrobe at the prospect of venturing out into the snow squalls, when he heard a dog barking at his door and an automobile horn tooting at the gate. He hurried to peer through the glass beside the door, and there saw the big head of Tom Jonah poked right against the glass.
“I’ll be right out, Neale!” shouted the doctor, glad enough that he had not to go out to the garage and tune up his own cold motor.
Neale had had the same thought Mrs. MacCall had. He knew that Agnes, whom he loved so dearly and with reason, and Ruth were both in need of immediate attention by the medical man. Dr. Forsyth got out as soon as he could, and Neale drove him back to the Corner House and waited there to take him home again.
When the doctor arrived the girls were in their beds. Agnes was already in a fitful sleep; but Ruth lay with wide-open eyes, burning up with fever, with her usual domestic anxieties riding her like a nightmare.
“Be sure and see that Tess wears her high shoes if she goes to school to-day, Mrs. Mac,” she murmured to the housekeeper. “Those others that she likes so, leak in the snow and slush. And Dot’s new gloves are in my sewing basket. I had been tightening the buttons.”
“Hold on!” commanded Dr. Forsyth. “Let’s pay a little attention to Ruth instead of Tess and Dot. How do you feel, my dear?”
“Like a Baltimore heater, thank you, Doctor,” Ruth replied, in a saner tone. “Have I been very crazy?”
“Very. Especially when you went to that party last evening,” declared the medical man. “Now be quiet—limbs and tongue! I’ve got to look you over pretty thoroughly.”
“If there’s any—anything fun—funda—any fun, doctor, I want to be in it!”