"She's splendid."
"What's the doctor say?"
"He says she only needs to be kept perfectly quiet."
"Hooray!" said Dick, and apparently executed a war-dance on the oil-cloth, while Olly profited by the general hubbub created by the entrance of two more ladies, to satisfactorily investigate the sponge-cake.
"Why, quite a levee, isn't it, Phebe?" said one of the last arrivals, looking in vain for a chair, and forced to seat herself on a low table, accidentally upsetting Phebe's medicines as she did so.
"Yes, altogether too much of one," said Gerald, knitting her brows as she rescued a bottle just in time, and darted an angry glance around the crowded room. "Phebe isn't at all equal to it yet."
"You are right, Miss Vernor," agreed Mrs. Upjohn, drawing out her tatting from her pocket, and settling herself at it with an answering frown. "There are quite too many here. Some people never know when to stay away."
"Oh, there's Bell. I hear her voice," called Mattie, running to look over the banisters. "She's got both Mr. De Forest and Mr. Moulton with her."
There was a sound of many voices below, a giggling, a rush for the stairs, and a playful scuffle.
"It's me" (Bell's voice); "Dick won't let me pass."