"I must find out what ails Sara," she faltered, and led her weeping child away.
When Alice returned after ministering to Sara there were no Brewsters. Of all the company there remained only Mrs. Marcey.
"Well, of all things, Alice Marcey!" she cried. "I never have liked the Brewsters, but I will say I think they have had trouble enough in this life without your making a bugaboo of them to your children so that they shriek with terror at the sight of them. Pierced to the heart is what they were! And how can you be so lacking in heart yourself, not to speak of Tom? I've never so wished that the earth would swallow me up! They've gone away, poor things, with the firm conviction that the least you have done was to threaten Sara that the Brewsters would get her if she wasn't good!"
Robert appeared in the doorway. His face was flushed and there was a vague swelling under his left jaw. He yawned crossly.
"Mother," he said, "I wish you'd rout Jamie out of my room. He's sitting in the corner talking about Brewsters, and he woke me up."
"Woke you up!" cried his grandma. "Whatever were you doing sleeping at this hour of the day, Robert?"
"I don't know. I'm hot—I've got a headache. I don't know what makes me so cross—I guess it was because I couldn't go motoring with the Mullinses."
"This child's got a fever," his Grandmother announced. She ran an experienced finger beneath his jaws, at which Robert said "Ouch!" "What he's got is mumps," declared his Grandmother; "it's not for nothing that I nursed Tom and all his cousins through the mumps."
