egrine! She hoped
Pepper had not spoiled everything!

Quiet settled over the Westley home. A door opened and shut and
uncertain footsteps came down the hall. Jerry, half asleep, thought it
must be the faithful and sensible Peregrine-Sarah, groping her way to
the third floor after having put the Duchess to bed. Then, across the
quiet pierced the wildest shrieking--a shrieking that brought back a
frightened Peregrine-Sarah, Graham, leaping in two bounds down the
stairway, Isobel, Mrs. Westley, Gyp and Jerry to the guest-room door!

In the middle of the room, her hands clasped tragically over her heart,
her mouth open for another shriek, stood Aunt Maria, trembling. Stripped
of her regal trappings she made an abject picture; the snowy puff lay on
her bureau and from under a nightcap, now sadly awry, straggled wisps of
yellow-gray hair. Her round body was warmly clad in a humble flannelette
nightdress, high-necked and long-sleeved. And, strangest of all, her
face was covered with squares and strips of courtplaster!

"Sarah!" (It was not Peregrine now.) "_Stupid_--standing there like an
_idiot_--my smelling salts! Won't _anyone_ call a doctor? My heart----"
She shrieked again. "This _miserable_ place! These--_brats_!"

"Maria Drinkwater, will you calm yourself enough to tell us what has
happened?" Mrs. Westley shook ever so slightly the flanneletted
shoulders.

"_Happened_----" snapped Aunt Maria. "Is it not _enough_ to have my
digestion spoiled by dogs and mice and boys but--oh, my poor heart, to
find a _mouse_ under my pillow----"

If the children had not been struck quite dumb by Aunt Maria's grotesque
face, with its wrinkles, they must surely have shouted aloud! The third
little mouse had sought refuge in Aunt Maria's bed!

Peregrine-Sarah and Mrs. Westley spent most of the night ministering
vainly to Aunt Maria's nerves. The next day, unforgiving, she departed,
bag and baggage.

Poor Isobel, thus burst the pretty bubble of her dreams! "I don't care,
they've spoiled my whole life," she wailed, tears reddening her eyes.

"_Who_ spoiled it--who did anything?" laughed Graham.

"What's this all about?" asked Uncle Johnny coming in at that moment.

Gyp told him what had happened. She talked too fast to permit of any
interruption; her story was Gyp-like.

"_You_ say, Uncle Johnny, _did_ we break our promise just 'cause a poor
little mouse hid under her pillow?"

"If it hadn't been for that miserable dog----" Iso