dog barked. Ruth made Ann and Curly go ahead and
held back with the sick girl.

"You go right upstairs with Helen, Ann," commanded Ruth. "I want to talk
to Mrs. Smith about Amy. She must be put in a warm room downstairs."

Mrs. Sadoc Smith agreed to this proposal the instant she saw Amy's flushed
face and heard her muttering.

"You telephone for Doctor Lambert, Henry," commanded Mrs. Smith. "We'll
have him give a look at her--though I could dose her myself, I reckon, and
bring her out all right."

Ruth feared the worst. She secretly stuck to her first diagnosis that Amy
had scarlet fever, but she did not say this to Mrs. Smith. They put Amy to
bed between blankets, and Mrs. Smith succeeded in getting the girl to
drink a dose of hot tea.

"That'll start her perspiring, which won't do a bit of harm," she said to
Ruth. "But I never saw anybody's face so red before--and her hands and
arms, too. She's breaking all out, I do declare."

Ruth was thinking: "If they have to quarantine Amy, I'll be quarantined
with her. I'll have to nurse her instead of going to school. Poor little
thing! she will require somebody's constant attention.

"But, oh dear!" added the girl of the Red Mill, "what will become of my
school work? I'll never be able to graduate in the world. Lucky those
moving pictures are taken--I won't be needed any more in those. Oh, dear!"

Ruth did not allow a murmur to escape her lips, however. She insisted on
remaining by the patient all night, too. Mrs. Smith was not able to quiet
the sick girl as well as Ruth did when the delirium Amy developed became
wilder.

It was almost daylight before Dr. Lambert came. He had been out of town on
a case, but came at once when he returned to Lumberton and found the call
from Mrs. Sadoc Smith's.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked the old lady. "She's as red as a lobster. Is
it anything catching? This girl ought not to be here, if it is."

"This girl had better remain here till we find out just what is the
matter," the doctor returned, scowling in a puzzled way at the patient. He
had seen at once that Ruth could control Amy.

"But what is it?"

"Fever. Delirium. You can see for yourself. What its name is, I'll tell
you when I come again. Keep on just as you are doing, and give her this
soothing medicine, and plenty of cracked ice--on her tongue, at least.
That is what is the matter; she is consumed with thirst. I'll have to see
that eruption again before I can say for sur