“I’ll carry her up-stairs to bed, Prue,” said her father, striving to render his voice natural for the sake of the suffering oldest daughter, whose tense white face was frightening.

Together they carried the child up the stairs.  “Put her in our bed,” said Prudence.  “I’ll—­I’ll—­if it’s diphtheria, daddy, she and I will stay upstairs here, and the rest of you must stay down.  You can bring our food up to the head of the stairs, and I’ll come out and get it.  They can’t take Carol away from the parsonage.”

“We will get a nurse, Prudence.  We couldn’t let you run a risk like that.  It would not be right.  If I could take care of her properly myself, I——­”

“You couldn’t, father, and it would be wicked for you to take such chances.  What would the—­others do without you?  But it would not make any difference about me.  I’m not important.  He can give me anti-toxin, and I’m such a healthy girl there will be no danger.  But she must not be shut alone with a nurse.  She would die!”

And Carol took up the words, screaming, “I will die!  I will die!  Don’t leave me, Prudence.  Don’t shut me up alone.  Prudence!  Prudence!”

Down-stairs in the kitchen, three frightened girls clung to one another, crying bitterly as they heard poor Carol’s piercing screams.

“It is pneumonia,” said the doctor, after an examination.  And he looked at Prudence critically.  “I think we must have a nurse for a few days.  It may be a little severe, and you are not quite strong enough.”  Then, as Prudence remonstrated, “Oh, yes,” he granted, “you shall stay with her, but if it is very serious a nurse will be of great service.  I will have one come at once.”  Then he paused, and listened to the indistinct sobbing that floated up from the kitchen.  “Can’t you send those girls away for the night,—­to some of the neighbors?  It will be much better.”

But this the younger girls stubbornly refused to do.  “If you send me out of the house when Carol is sick, I will kill myself,” said Lark, in such a strange voice that the doctor eyed her sharply.

“Well, if you will all stay down-stairs and keep quiet, so as not to annoy your sister,” he consented grudgingly.  “The least sobbing, or confusion, or excitement, may make her much worse.  Fix up a bed on the floor down here, all of you, and go to sleep.”

“I won’t go to bed,” said Lark, looking up at the doctor with agonized eyes.  “I won’t go to bed while Carol is sick.”

“Give her a cup of something hot to drink,” he said to Fairy curtly.

“I won’t drink anything,” said Lark.  “I won’t drink anything, and I won’t eat a bite of anything until Carol is well.  I won’t sleep, either.”

The doctor took her hand in his, and deftly pushed the sleeve above the elbow.

“You can twist my arm if you like, but I won’t eat, and I won’t drink, and I won’t sleep.”

The doctor smiled.  Swiftly inserting the point of his needle in her arm, he released her.  “I won’t hurt you, but I am pretty sure you will be sleeping in a few minutes.”  He turned to Fairy.  “Get her ready for bed at once.  The little one can wait.”