“Tell us what you mean!” commanded Betty.

“Who has the measles?” cried Bobby.

“Everybody!  Or, pretty near everybody, I guess.  The chaps who had it and were quarantined when we came away from Salsette, gave it to the servants.  And it has spread to the village.  And Miss Prettyman’s got it and a lot of the other folks at Shadyside.  Oh, my eye!”

“Are you fooling us, Bob?” demanded Betty.

“Honor bright!  It is just as I say.  Of course, it all isn’t in the messages the two schools have sent out to ‘parents and guardians.’  That is the way the messages are headed, you know.  But the Shadyside Mirror has come, too, and tells all about it.  Opening is postponed for a fortnight.  What do you know about that?” and Bob began his clumsy dance again.

Betty broke away and darted down the stairs.  She scarcely touched the steps with her feet she flew so fast, and if it had not been for the banister she surely would have come to the bottom in a heap.

She ran out on the porch to find her Uncle Dick smoking a cigar and reading the paper in a warm corner.  Like a stone from a catapult she flung herself into his arms.

“Oh, Uncle Dick!  Uncle Dick!  Now we can go!” she cried, seizing him tightly around the neck.

“Goodness, child!” choked Uncle Dick, fairly throttled by her exuberance.  “What is it?  Go where, Betty?”

“To Mountain Camp!  With you!  All of us!  No school for more than two weeks!  Oh, Uncle Dick!” Then she suddenly stopped and her glowing face lost its color and her excitement subsided.  “Dear me!” she quavered, “I ’member now I had ’em when I was six, and they say you can’t have ’em but once.”

“What can’t you have but once?”

“Measles,” said Betty, sighing deeply.  “I suppose after all I can go back to Shadyside.  Maybe Mrs. Eustice will expect all of us that have had ’em to come.”

CHAPTER VI

A DISAPPEARANCE

There was an exciting conclave at Fairfields that evening.  Perhaps I should say two.  For in one room given over by the good-natured Mrs. Littell to the young folks there was a most noisy conclave while the older members of the household held a more quiet if no less earnest conference in the library.

There were eight in the young folks’ meeting for Mrs. Littell insisted upon Esther’s going to bed at a certain hour every evening “to get her beauty sleep.”

“And I’ll say she is sure to be a raving beauty when she grows up, if she keeps going to bed with the chickens,” giggled Bobby.

“You know she can’t go to Mountain Camp anyway,” Louise said quietly, “for her school isn’t measly and it begins again day after to-morrow.”

“Poor Esther!” sighed Betty.  “We must make it up to her somehow.  I was afraid she would cry at dinner this evening.”

“She’s a good kid,” agreed Bobby.  “But are you sure, Betty, that we can go to the mountains?  Just think!  Eight of us!”