quick. If you don't I'll go to Betty, and
she'll do what I want her to do."

"You needn't do that," cried nurse. "You are a queer child, and more
trouble than you're worth, but when you are in a bit of a mess I'm not
the one to refuse my aid. Who have I to write to?"

"To my darlingest Aunt Sophy."

"My word! What on earth have you got to say to her?"

"Get 'terials and you'll know."

Nurse complied somewhat unwillingly. She produced a portfolio, got out
her ink-bottle and pen, dipped the pen in ink, and looked up at Penelope.

"Go on, and be quick," she said. "I can't be fashed with the whims of
children. What is it that you want to say?"

"Write, 'Dear, darling Aunt Sophia.'"

"You are too queer!"

Nevertheless nurse put the words on the sheet of paper, and Pen proceeded
to deliver herself quickly.

"'I am paled down, and want change of air. My breaf is too quick. My legs
is all tored with briers and things. I has got a prickly feeling in my
froat, and I gets wet as water all over my hands and round my neck and my
forehead. It's 'cos I'm weak, I 'spect.'"

"Miss Penelope," said the nurse, "if those symptoms are correct, it is
the doctor you want."

"'I has a doubly-up pain in my tum-tum,'" proceeded Penelope, taking no
notice of nurse's interruption. "'I shrieks in my sleep. I wants change
of air. I am very poorly. Nursey is writing this, and she knows I am very
poorly. I feel sort of as though I could cry. It's not only my body, it's
my mind. I has got a weight on my mind. It's a secret, and you ought to
know. Send for me quick, 'cos I want change of air.

Pen.'"

"I never wrote a queerer letter," said nurse; "and from the looks of you
there seems to be truth in it. You certainly don't look well."

"You will send it, nursey?" asked Pen, trembling with excitement.

"Yes, child; you have dictated it to me, and it shall go by the post.
Whether Miss Tredgold will mind a word you say or not remains to be
proved. Now leave me, and do for goodness' sake try not to run about
wildly any more for to-day at least."

Penelope left the room. She stooped slightly as she walked, and she
staggered a little. When she got near the door she coughed. As she
reached the passage she coughed more loudly.

"It's my froat," she said in a very sad tone, and she crept down the
passage, nurse watching her from the open door of the nursery.

She did not gue