"I'm so hot, Nell! I just burn—I b'lieve I'll scorch soon."
"You've caught a bad cold, Sheila Pat. You'll have to stay in bed."
"I won't! I want to go out and get cool. I'll go and have my cold bath now."
But very soon she was shivering again.
Miss Kezia sent for Dr. Everton. Sheila Pat was pronounced an invalid, the fire was lit, and the restless little Atom condemned to bed.
Dr. Everton looked grave; he murmured the dread words—rheumatic fever—but hoped it might be merely a heavy, influenza cold. He told them to be very careful.
It seemed a long, long day. Sheila Pat, realising she was to be an invalid, used all her sturdy powers to be a brave one. She was very hot and feverish; her poor little head ached, and she ached all over her body.
"Nell," she said once, "I can't be very little, after all, because there's such a heap of room for the aches! I feel most as big as the giant Mahon MacMahon. Nell, I wonder if he ever caught cold?"
But there was something that worried the Atom and tormented her far more than the worst of the aches did, and that was a bewildering, disconcerting longing to cry that had assailed her. Over and over again the tears got as far as her eyes, and had to be hidden away in the pillow. Once one ran down her cheek, and they caught her breath in her throat and made it ache with a worse ache than that in her legs. She lay tossing and turning, her brilliant eyes full of a desperation that hurt the others to see. Every other minute she was sitting up, her pig-tail sticking out, breathing hard.
"Mayn't I get up, just for a minute? May I just put my legs over the edge, then? Nell, I—I'm just tired of bein' in bed!" The poor little voice shook despairingly.