"Take her home and send for your physician at once."
"Come, Madge; come with mother," said Agnes, rising,—"your naughty mother, who don't care any thing about her children."
But Madge would not come. She cried, and declared she could not walk; and Agnes was obliged to carry her. Towards evening she came over again, looking very much frightened.
"Madge is really sick. I wish you would come and look at her."
Alick was playing with Gatty; and Letty ran across the road with Agnes. Madge was crying and very restless; and the moment Letty looked at her, she felt as though she should drop.
"It is scarlet fever!" said Letty, in a trembling voice. "Oh, Agnes, how could you be so careless? And she was playing with Alick all this morning!"
"How could I tell?" said Agnes, the impulse to blame some one else being uppermost, as usual. "You ought to have known yourself. You had seen scarlet fever, and I never had. But you cannot think of a thing but yourself and your baby! So selfish!"
Letty could not trust her voice to answer.
"And what will Joe say?" pursued Agnes. "It will all be my fault, of course: every thing always is! And I dare say she will die, and the baby too. I am the most miserable woman on earth!" And Agnes burst into tears, thereby frightening Madge, whose sobs became shrieks.
"Listen to me, Agnes," said Letty, who by this time had regained in some measure her usual self-control. "Madge is very sick, and you must put by every thing else and take care of her: keep her quiet, and let Joe go for the doctor as soon as he comes home."