"Are you going to let them come?" demanded Irene.
Mercedes turned helplessly toward Tabitha. "What would you do, Kitty?" she asked. "Shall I write and ask mamma?"
"I shouldn't," Tabitha promptly replied. "Your mother has her hands full now, and it would only worry her to know how nervy your Aunt Kate is. I'd write her,—your aunt, I mean,—and tell her just how things stand, your father in the hospital and your mother with him. She ought to know more than to send them then. Still, I believe I'd just say that the boys can't come. She would understand that all right. And I'll be responsible, Mercedes, if your mother should think we ought to have told her about it first."
"I'd telegraph, so's to be sure," said Susanne. "Aunt Kate doesn't think much about other folks' wishes, and if she wanted to go to Europe bad enough, she'd ship the boys to us if we all had smallpox."
"That's a good idea," Tabitha acknowledged. "We'll telegraph at once, and then she will have no excuse for not knowing how sick your father is. Where is there a pencil and paper? I'll write out a telegram now, and we'll slip down town, and send it to-night."
She hastily scribbled the words:
"Mrs. Dennis McKittrick,
Jamaica Plains, Mass.
Don't send boys. Father in Los Angeles hospital. Mother with him.
MERCEDES McKITTRICK."
Then taking Irene as company, she carried the message to the telegraph station that same evening, to make sure it reached its destination in time to prevent the threatened visit from the unwelcome cousins.
"Perhaps I acted in a high-handed manner," she confessed to Gloriana, as they were preparing for bed that night, "but I couldn't bear to think of that selfish old cat—yes, that's what she is,—imposing upon Mrs. McKittrick again. I remember the boys, though it was quite a while ago that they were here. They were only little shavers then, too. I never met them, but one doesn't have to in order to know all they want to know about their antics."