"You'll have to excuse the biscuit," said Mother Hubbard, nervously. "I mixed 'em too tight, and I think the flour's half corn, they look so yellow; it can't be all soda."
"I presume not all soda; some mixture of flour and water. But where are they, ma'am?"
"O, I put them in the cupboard. I thought you'd like crackers better."
"But these are the mizzerble kind, that don't split," said Lady Magnifico, in tragic tones; "I told you so to-day noon."
"Stop a minute, Miss Hubbard; my coffee's too sour," cried the youngest, determined to scowl as hard as Dotty did, if it was a possible thing.
The worried landlady passed the sugar, and the small boarder corrected the sourness of her white tea with three teaspoonfuls, heaping measure.
"My little Toddlekins is eating nothing." said the doctor. "I hope her red cheeks don't indicate fever."
"There's great quantities of sickness just now among children," said Lady Magnifico, crooking her little finger genteelly. "Nervous Exhaustation is going about."
"Nervous what, my lady?"
"Exhaustation. I am well acquainted with a lady in the first society that had it dreadfully. She called in twenty-five doctors, if my memory preserves me right; and then she like to died."