It was here that Alice Marcey made a cryptic remark. It was:
"What's mumps to motors?"
Her mother-in-law looked at her sharply. Alice had never taken the sickness of her children thus calmly.
"Well, I'm sorry for you, Alice. I won't say another word about Brewsters, though scandalous is my name for it. Now," she pursued, "I suppose you'll be quarantined. You may as well have the red card tacked up on your house, 'Contagious Disease,' at once, because I suppose they'll all come down. Most likely you're in for a siege."
"They'll have to have it sooner or later," Alice returned with philosophy.
For with that red ticket upon her house, for a time, she knew, she was safe from both Mullinses and Brewsters, from Tom's cousins in Pennsylvania and her own from near Boston.
