t's the matter?"

The boy swallowed painfully.

"Tell me, Ernest, I won't tell. Honest to goodness, I won't." Jane
cuddled up close to him laying her face against his shoulder
caressingly.

Ernest was not proof against her sympathy and he blurted out his
remorse.

"'Tisn't your fault a speck--you didn't tease her to come."

Chicken Little patted and argued in vain. Ernest found her comforting,
but did not feel that she was old enough to understand.

Chicken Little took the matter up with Marian the very next day. She
began very diplomatically because she had promised not to tell.

"Do you s'pose you'd got sick if you hadn't come to see Ernest that
day, Marian?"

"Probably not, dear."

This was not reassuring.

"But you might have gone some place else, mightn't you?"

"I suppose so--only I don't think I should have been silly enough to go
out in that storm without a good reason."

"But it wasn't Ernest's fault it stormed," Jane replied plaintively.

"Ernest's fault? Why, what do you mean?" Marian looked at the child in
astonishment.

Jane's face was very sober.

"I just guess he couldn't help if it you got all cold and----"

"Of course not, Jane, what put such an idea into your head! I should
have had more sense than to venture out in such a storm. Does Ernest--is
that why he brings me all those things and hangs round so?--the poor
boy? Dear me, this will never do."

"He wouldn't like it if he knew I told you," said Chicken Little
ruefully.

"You haven't told me, dear. I guessed it, but I'll find a way to stop
his worrying."

April came and went and Marian was still pale and weak. Dr. Morton
looked grave and finally suggested to Frank that they should have the
famous Dr. Brownleigh of Chicago down to examine Marian's lungs. Frank
went white at the suggestion, but quietly acquiesced. Two days later the
great doctor arrived.

Chicken Little knew there was some excitement afoot that morning when
she went to school. Both Dr. and Mrs. Morton looked sad and Mrs. Morton
sighed frequently. Ernest pushed most of his breakfast away untasted.

"What time will he be here, Father?"

"On the nine-thirty."

"Who?" Chicken Little demanded curiously.

"A man you have never seen, little daughter," her father replied
quietly.

So Chicken Little went off to school mystified but curious.

The great physician did his work carefully. It was before the days of
germ cultures, and the apparatus for such tests h