r room to finish her Latin verses.

"Though why you should be compelled to write Latin verses when you can't
make decent English rhymes I don't see," she grumbled.

She was almost through when the door flew open and shut again with a
bang and Louie Howe threw herself on the floor clasping Phillipa's
knees, her eyes distraught with terror.

"Oh, isn't it horrible!" she almost shrieked. "Those boys had malignant
scarlet fever! That one was dying the girl held up, he was choking
awfully, and at nine o'clock the other one died. It's all in the
morning's paper. I think they hid it away. Miss Vincent picked it up in
the library. Oh, what can we do?"

"You can stop screaming and get up." Phillipa fairly dragged her up and
shook her violently. "Hush! hush!" she commanded. "You'll have the whole
faculty in here, and we'll be bundled out bag and baggage. Have a little
regard for Zay and me if you have none for yourself."

Phillipa drew up the willow rocker and pushed Louie in it. "Don't have
hysterics if that is what you're aiming at or I'll douse you with cold
water until you're half drowned."

Louie was sobbing now. "I can't help it, and think of the dreadful risk
we ran! That woman ought to be sent to prison."

"That woman was going on with her business, earning her living. We were
the fools! How did they know it was scarlet fever?"

"Well, she thought it was measles and was doctoring them, but one of
them grew so much worse she sent for Dr. Lewis and he was so busy he
didn't get there until five, just as the boy died, and the other one
hadn't seemed so bad, but he died at nine, and the youngest girl has the
fever. Dr. Lewis sent for the undertaker right away and they put
something on the bodies and sealed up the coffin and they were to be
buried this morning and the clothes to be burned and the house
fumigated. Oh, isn't it horrible! The woman ought to go to prison."

"After losing her two children?"

"Well, to give us all scarlet fever, malignant scarlet fever?" with
emphasis.

Phillipa was quivering in every nerve. But she _must_ control Louie.

"Well, we shouldn't have gone there. I think she ought not have let us
in but just said she couldn't admit customers. Now, what are you going
to do?"

"I--I--what _can_ I do? I s'pose I'll have scarlet fever--"

"You can give the thing away and be sent home in disgrace. You'll lose
your watch and perhaps not get in another school. You can spoil Zay
Crawford's life f