"Where is it these folks are ill? Not to your house?"
"Oh no. Down at the farmhouse—you know our farmhouse—under the bank."
"Did you leave the child there?"
"She was there when I came away."
"Well, you run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and fetch her out of that. Bring her home, and don't you nor she go down there again. Maybe it's no harm, but it's safe to do as I tell you. Now go, and I'll come. Don't let the grass grow under your feet."
Norton was not used to be ordered about quite so decidedly; it struck him as an amusing variety in his life. However he divined that Miss Redwood might have some deep reason for being so energetic, and he was not slow in getting back to Briery Bank; so his mother's place was called. The house was shut up, as he and Matilda had left it, and he went on down to the home of the sick people. There he found Matilda as he had left her. Norton only put his head into the sick-room and called her out.
"Miss Redwood is coming," he said.
"I'm so glad! I knew she would," said Matilda. "She will know what to do. They all seem stupid, Norton, except the woman who is out of her head."
"Yes, she will know what to do," said Norton; "and you had better come away now. You don't."
"I can do something, though," said Matilda. "I can give the medicine and the beef tea. Why, there was nobody even to give the medicine, Norton. I found it here with the doctor's directions; and nobody had taken it till I came, not one of these poor people. But oh, the rooms are so disagreeable with so many invalids in them! you can't think."