"Take care of yourself, for one thing; you don't look right, either," said Tom.
"I feel dragging—that's the only word I know for it," said Phyllis. "And Lionel is pale and languid. I wonder if the child and I are both getting ready to be ill."
"Poor little beggar, I hope he isn't," said Tom; "but that would be nothing to your coming down. I'm going to fix you up some quinine and calisaya; I am not pleased with you of late, Miss Phyllis."
Four days later Phyllis trailed her weary way homeward. The end of her first month of servitude had come; the twenty-five dollars she had thus earned lay in her pocket-book in four new bills. Her head ached, her knees felt strangely unreliable, her spine seemed to be some one else's, so burning and painful it felt in its present place, and her eyes played her tricks by showing her objects in false positions and sizes and occasionally flaring up and darkening completely for a dreadful few seconds.
Jessamy met her at the door with an anxious face. "Mama has given out wholly, Phyl," she said. "She is in bed and frightens me, she looks so weak, and her heart beats unevenly and feebly."
"That's bad," said Phyllis, so indifferently that Jessamy stared in amazement, then saw with utter sinking of her heart that Phyllis looked desperately ill herself; if Phyllis, the rock they all leaned on, gave out now, what should she do?
"What is the matter, Phyl?" she cried, putting her arm around her cousin.
"I have no idea. My head aches unbearably, and it seems to be a headache that reaches to the soles of my feet," answered Phyllis, miserably. "What does Tom say about auntie?"
"He thinks it is just complete giving out, as though that weren't bad enough! And he made me send for Doctor Jerome; he says he wouldn't dare take the responsibility of our resting on his opinion, so the doctor is to come soon, I hope." said Jessamy.