If there was any living thing in the world beside herself which Irene loved it was her little three-year-old brother Johnnie, the darling of the household, on whom she lavished all the unselfishness and affection of which she was capable. It was Johnnie whom she cared to see when away from home, Johnnie, who, in her mother’s letters to her, sent pencil scrawls as his contributions, with love and kisses for his “booful Reene,” as he called her. And now he was ill—dying, perhaps, and she must go to him. Every other consideration was forgotten. She must go to him.
“What is it, Irene?” Rena asked, as she saw how white her cousin grew.
Irene gave her the telegram, while the tears rained down her face.
“Johnnie is dying,” she said, “and I must take the first train for home. There is one at eleven. I must catch it.”
She started upstairs, followed by Rena, who said:
“I am sorry for you, and hope we may find him better.”
“We,” Irene repeated. “You are not going with me.”
“Yes, I am,” Rena replied, beginning to fold one of her dresses.
“But you must not,” Irene continued. “The telegram said ‘malignant diphtheria.’ You had it once and came near dying. You must not run the risk again. You are not needed. Our house is small. Tom and your aunt would not like it, and you must not go.”
Very reluctantly Rena hung up her dress, with a feeling that Irene was right—that Tom and her aunt would not like her running into danger and that very likely she would be in the way, and might again contract the disease which had nearly ended her life a few years before.