and the
blankets browning nicely before the fire.

Then he went away to talk quite cheerfully to Aunt Peace about its being
"only a chill"; after which he tramped up and down the hall, pulling his
beard and knitting his brows, sure signs of great inward perturbation.

"I thought it would be too good luck to get through the year without a
downfall. Confound my perversity! Why couldn't I take Myra's advice and
keep Rose at home. It's not fair that the poor child should suffer
for my sinful over-confidence. She shall not suffer for it! Pneumonia,
indeed! I defy it," and he shook his fist in the ugly face of an Indian
idol that happened to be before him, as if that particularly hideous god
had some spite against his own little goddess.

In spite of his defiance his heart sunk when he saw Rose again, for
the pain was worse, and the bath and blankets, the warming-pan and
piping-hot sage tea, were all in vain. For several hours there was no
rest for the poor child, and all manner of gloomy forebodings haunted
the minds of those who hovered about her with faces full of the
tenderest anxiety.

In the midst of the worst paroxysm Charlie came to leave a message from
his mother, and was met by Phebe coming despondently downstairs with a
mustard plaster that had brought no relief.

"What the dickens is the matter? You look as dismal as a tombstone," he
said, as she held up her hand to stop his lively whistling.

"Miss Rose is dreadful sick."

"The deuce she is!"

"Don't swear, Mr. Charlie; she really is, and it's Mr. Mac's fault," and
Phebe told the sad tale in a few sharp words, for she felt at war with
the entire race of boys at that moment.

"I'll give it to him, make your mind easy about that," said Charlie,
with an ominous doubling up of his fist. "But Rose isn't dangerously
ill, is she?" he added anxiously, as Aunt Plenty was seen to trot across
the upper hall, shaking a bottle violently as she went.

"Oh, but she is though. The Doctor don't say much, but he don't call it
a 'chill' any more. It's 'pleurisy' now, and I'm so afraid it will be
pewmonia to-morrow," answered Phebe, with a despairing glance at the
plaster.

Charlie exploded into a stifled laugh at the new pronunciation of
pneumonia, to Phebe's great indignation.

"How can you have the heart to do it, and she in such horrid pain? Hark
to that, and then laugh if you darst," she said with a tragic gesture,
and her black eyes full of fire.

Charlie lis