s they drove homeward. "For my part I think the whole thing
was a fizzle."

"I was thinking," said Evadne slowly, "of the power of a laugh."

"The power of a laugh! What in the World do you mean?"

"I mean that it is a great deal better for ourselves to laugh than to
cry, and vastly more comfortable for our neighbors."

"Evadne will not be down," announced Marion the next morning as she
entered the breakfast room. "She caught a dreadful cold at the concert
yesterday and she can't lift her head from the pillow. Celestine thinks
she is sickening for a fever."

"Dear me, how tiresome!" exclaimed Mrs. Hildreth. "I have such a horror
of having sickness in the house,--one never knows where it will end.
Ring the bell for Sarah, Marion, to take up her breakfast."

"It is no use, Mamma. She says she does not want anything."

"But that is nonsense. The child must eat. If it is fever, she will need
a nurse, and nurses always make such an upheaval in a house."

"You had better go up, my dear, and see for yourself," said Judge
Hildreth. "Celestine may be mistaken."

"Mercy!" cried Isabelle, "it is to be hoped she is! I have the most
abject horror of fevers and that is enough to make me catch it. Fancy
having one's head shorn like a convict! The very idea is appalling."

"Oh, of course if there is the slightest danger, you and Marion will
have to go to Madame Castle's to board," said her mother. "It is very
provoking that Evadne should have chosen to be sick just now."

"Not likely the poor girl had much choice in the matter," laughed Louis.
"There are a few things, lady mother, over which the best of us have no
control."

"I wish you would go up and see the child, Kate," said Judge Hildreth
impatiently. "If there is the least fear of anything serious I will send
the carriage at once for Doctor Russe. It is a risky business
transplanting tropical flowers into our cold climate."

The kind-hearted French maid was bending over Evadne's pillow when Mrs.
Hildreth entered the room. She had grown to love the quiet stranger
whose courtesy made her work seem light, and it was with genuine regret
that she whispered to her mistress,--"It is the feevar. I know it well.
My seestar had it and died."

Evadne's eyes were closed and she took no notice of her aunt's entrance.
Mrs. Hildreth spoke to her and then left the room hurriedly to summon
her husband. Even her unpractised eyes showed her that her niece was
very ill.

Doctor Rus