“Why, of course not!” said Mrs. Peyton, quickly.  “Candy made this afternoon—­how absurd, Charlotte!  It was last night his sleep was disturbed.”

“But the hospital visit was this morning,” Charlotte said.  “I should think the one might as easily be responsible as the other.”

Mrs. Peyton looked confused.  “I understood you to say the visit to the hospital occurred yesterday,” she said, with dignity, and Doctor Churchill smothered his amusement.  “I certainly do not approve of taking children to such places,” she repeated.

Charlotte adroitly turned the conversation into other channels, and nothing more was said about hospitals just then.  Only the boy, when he had a chance, whispered in Doctor Churchill’s ear: 

“You just wait.  I’ll tease her into it.”

His cousin smiled back at him and shook his head.  “Teasing’s a mighty poor way of getting things, Ran,” he said.  “Leave it to me.”

Toward the end of the following day Jeff, crossing the lawn at his usual rapid pace, was hailed from Doctor Churchill’s office door by Mrs. Fields.  The housekeeper waved a telegram as he approached.

“Here, Mr. Jeff,” said she.  “Would you mind opening this?  There ain’t a soul in the house, and I don’t want to take such a liberty, but it ought to be read.  I make no manner of doubt it’s from those extry visitors that are coming.”

“Where are they all?” Jeff fingered the envelope reluctantly.  “I don’t like opening other people’s messages.”

“I don’t know where they are, that’s it.  Doctor took Miss Charlotte and Ranny off after lunch in his machine, and Mis’ Peyton and Lucy have gone to town with your mother.  Doctor Andy wouldn’t like it if his friends came without anybody to meet ’em.”

Jeff tore open the dispatch.  “The first two words will tell me, I suppose,” he said.  “Hello—­yes, you’re right!  They’ll be here on the five-ten.  That’s”—­he pulled out his watch—­“why, there’s barely time to get to the station now!  This must have been delayed.  You say you don’t know where anybody is?”

“Not a soul.  Doctor usually leaves word, but he didn’t this time.”

“I’ll telephone the hospital,” and Jeff hurried to Doctor Churchill’s desk.  In a minute he had learned that the doctor had come and gone for the last time that day.  He looked at Mrs. Fields.

“You’ll have to go, Mr. Jeff,” said she.  “I know Doctor Andy’s ways.  He’d as soon let company go without their dinners as not be on hand when their train came in.  He wasn’t expecting the Lees till to-morrow.”

“Of course,” said Jeff, “I’ll go, since there’s nobody else.  How am I to know ’em?  Young man and sick girl?  All right, that’s easy,” and he was off to catch a car at the corner.

As he rode into town, however, he was rebelling against the situation.  “This guest business is being overdone,” he observed to himself.  “These people are probably some more off the Peyton piece of cloth.  An invalid girl lying round on couches for Fiddle to wait on—­another Lucy, probably, only worse, because she’s ill.  Well, I’m not going to be any more cordial than the law calls for.  I’ll have to bring ’em out in a carriage, I suppose.  She’ll be too limp for the trolley.”