“You are too queer!”
Nevertheless nurse put the words on the sheet of paper, and Pen proceeded to deliver herself quickly.
“‘I am paled down, and want change of air. My breaf is too quick. My legs is all tored with briers and things. I has got a prickly feeling in my froat, and I gets wet as water all over my hands and round my neck and my forehead. It’s ’cos I’m weak, I ‘spect.’”
“Miss Penelope,” said the nurse, “if those symptoms are correct, it is the doctor you want.”
“‘I has a doubly-up pain in my tum-tum,’” proceeded Penelope, taking no notice of nurse’s interruption. “‘I shrieks in my sleep. I wants change of air. I am very poorly. Nursey is writing this, and she knows I am very poorly. I feel sort of as though I could cry. It’s not only my body, it’s my mind. I has got a weight on my mind. It’s a secret, and you ought to know. Send for me quick, ’cos I want change of air.
Pen.’”
“I never wrote a queerer letter,” said nurse; “and from the looks of you there seems to be truth in it. You certainly don’t look well.”
“You will send it, nursey?” asked Pen, trembling with excitement.
“Yes, child; you have dictated it to me, and it shall go by the post. Whether Miss Tredgold will mind a word you say or not remains to be proved. Now leave me, and do for goodness’ sake try not to run about wildly any more for to-day at least.”
Penelope left the room. She stooped slightly as she walked, and she staggered a little. When she got near the door she coughed. As she reached the passage she coughed more loudly.