Gwendolyn was startled.  What did Jane mean? What difference?  Why so much satisfaction all at once?  She wished the others would listen; would take note of the triumphant air.  But both were busy, the little old gentleman chattering and pointing ahead, the Policeman straining to keep pace and look where his companion directed.

To lessen her uneasiness, Gwendolyn hunted a second stick of candy.  Then sidled in between her two friends.  “Oh, please,” she began appealingly, with a glance up and a glance down, “I’m ’fraid Jane’s going to make us trouble.  Can’t we think of some way to get rid of her?”

The Policeman twisted his neck around until he could wink at her with his black eye.  “In town,” said he meaningly, “we Policemen have a way.”

“Oh, tell us!” she begged.  For the Man-Who-Makes-Faces looked keenly interested.

“Well,” resumed the Officer—­and now he halted just long enough to raise a gloved finger to one side of his head with a significant gesture—­“when we want to get rid of a person, we put a flea in his ear.”

Gwendolyn blushed rosy.  A flea!  It was an insect that Miss Royle had never permitted her to mention.  Still—­

“But—­but where could we—­er—­find—­a—­a—?”

She had stammered that far when she saw the little old gentleman turn his wrinkled face over a shoulder.  Next, he jerked an excited thumb.  And looking, she saw that Jane was failing to keep up.

By now the nurse had swelled to astonishing proportions.  Her body was as round as a barrel.  Her face was round too, and more red than ever.  Her cheeks were so puffed, the skin of her forehead was so tight and shiny, that she looked precisely like a monster copy of a sanitary rubber doll!

“She can’t last much longer!  Her strength’s giving out.”  It was the Policeman.  And his voice ended in a sob. (Yet the sob meant nothing, for he was showing all his white teeth in a delighted smile.)

“She must have help!”—­this the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.  His voice broke, too.  But his round, dark eyes were brimming with laughter.

“Who’ll help her?” demanded Gwendolyn. “Nobody.  So one of that three is gone for good!”

She halted now—­on the summit of a rise.  Up this, but at a considerable distance, Jane was toiling, with feeble hops to the right, and staggering steps to the left, and faint, fat gasps.

“Oh, Gwendolyn darlin’!” she called weepingly.  “Oh, don’t leave your Jane!  Oh!  Oh!”

“I’ve made up my mind,” announced Gwendolyn, “to have the nurse-maid in the brick house.  So, good-by—­good-by.”

She began to descend rapidly, with the little old gentleman in a shuffling run, and the Policeman springing from hand to hand as if he feared pursuit, and swaying his legs from side to side with a tick-tock, tick-tock.  The going was easy.  Soon the bottom of the slope was reached.  Then all stopped to look back.