Betty gave a little jump, but as quickly controlled herself again.  “Oh, I’d quite forgotten about him,” she said calmly.  “Tony is in bed.”

“In bed?” cried Dr. Trenire and Kitty at the same moment.  “Isn’t he well?”

None of them had ever been sent to bed for being naughty, so that illness was the only explanation that occurred to them.

“Oh yes, he is all right; but I made him get under the feather-bed because of the lightning—­”

“The what?”

“The lightning.  They say it can’t strike you if you are covered with feathers, and of course I didn’t want it to strike Tony, speshally with nobody here but me to—­to take the ’sponsibility,” looking at her father with the most serious face imaginable.  “So I made him get into the spare-room bed, ’cause it’s a feather-bed, and then I put all the eider-downs over him, and I expect he’s as safe as can be.”

Dr. Trenire gave a low whistle and started to his feet.  “Very thoughtful of you, child,” he said, trying not to smile, “and I expect Tony is safe enough, if he isn’t cooked or suffocated.  For my part, I should prefer the risk to such a protection in this weather.  I’ll go and rescue him.”  But Kitty had already flown.

“I forgot to tell Kitty,” went on Betty thoughtfully, “that I think the moths have got into the eider-downs, such a lot of them flew out when I moved the quilts.”

Dr. Trenire groaned.  “I suppose the quilts have never been attended to or put away since we ceased to use them?”

“No,” said Betty gravely.  “You see, if they are on the spare-room bed they are all out in readiness for when we want them.”

“And for the moths when they want them,” sighed her father.  “I expect they will not leave much for us.”

Kitty, her father’s half-jesting words filling her with a deep alarm, had meanwhile raced up to the spare room.  Somehow, on this dreadful day, anything seemed possible, certainly anything that was terrible, and she remembered suddenly that the spare bedroom was the very hottest room in the house.  It was over the kitchen, and caught every possible gleam of sunshine from morning till evening.  Also she knew Betty’s thoroughness only too well, and her mind’s eye saw poor little Tony buried deep and tucked in completely, head and all.

The whole house was stiflingly hot.  Kitty’s own face grew crimson with her race upstairs, and when she opened the door of the spare bedroom the heat positively poured out; but a terrible load was lifted from her mind, for, mercifully, Tony’s head was uncovered.  He was the colour of a crimson peony, it is true, but at any rate he was not suffocated, unless—­Kitty stepped quickly forward and touched his cheek.  It almost made her sick with dread to do so; but the red cheek was very, very hot and lifelike to the touch, and at the same moment Tony opened a y pair of large sleepy eyes, and stared up at his sister wonderingly.