And in another minute in rushed the little doctor, seized his medicine case, saying as he did so, "I sha'n't come back here, wife, if it is diphtheria, but go to my office and change my clothes. There's considerable of the disease around. Good-night, child." He stopped to kiss Phronsie, who lifted a pale, troubled face to his. "Don't worry; I guess Helen will be all right," and he dashed off again.
"Now, Phronsie, child," said Mrs. Fisher, "come to mother and let us talk it over a bit."
So Phronsie cuddled up in Mamsie's lap, and laid her sad little cheek where she had been so often comforted.
"Mamsie," she said at last, lifting her head, "I don't believe God will let Helen die, because you see she's the only child that Mrs. Fargo has. He couldn't, Mamsie."
"Phronsie, darling, God knows best," said Mrs. Fisher, holding her close.
"But he wouldn't ever do it, I know," said Phronsie confidently; "I'm going to ask Him not to, and tell Him over again about Helen's being the very only one that Mrs. Fargo has in all the world." So she slipped to the floor, and went into her own room again and closed the door. "Dear Jesus," she said, kneeling by her little white bed, "please don't take Helen away, because her mother has only just Helen. And please make dear papa give her the right things, so that she will live at home, and not go to Heaven yet. Amen."
Then she clambered into bed, and lay looking out across the moonlight, where the light from Helen Fargo's room twinkled through the fir-trees on the lawn.
CHAPTER VII.
PHRONSIE.
"I can't tell her," groaned Mrs. Pepper, the next morning, at sight of Phronsie's peaceful little face. "I never can say the word 'diphtheria' in all this world."