help him on with his
overcoat.

He had hurried home in the night train, on purpose to spend Christmas
day with his family, and was really too tired to take a ride of two
miles in a snow-storm. But he was not thinking of that; he was thinking
how dreadful it was to have his dear little niece sick away from home;
and how her papa didn't like the Hilltop doctor,--and perhaps it was
best to go three miles farther to the next town after Dr. Pulsifer.

"Yes, go for Dr. Pulsifer," said Aunt Charlotte, when he asked her about
it; "and be as quick as you can."

Flaxie knew nothing of all this. Her cheeks burned, her eyes shone, and
she kept saying there were a million lions and tigers in the bed; and
where was the rat-trap?

"Do bring the rat-trap!" said she, plunging about in a fright. "Oh, you
don't hear, do you? There's a woman out in the other room eating
peas,--eating, and eating, and eating. Why don't you stop her? Oh, you
don't hear! Johnny Allen, run for a sponge and vinegar, and put it in
auntie's ears, so she can hear!"

Milly laughed at these strange speeches till she heard Nancy say to Mrs.
Hunter, "Crazy as a loon, ain't she? I'm afraid it's water on the
brain."

Then Milly, who did not understand Nancy's meaning, but was appalled by
the tone, ran into the pantry, and cried behind the flour-barrel.

"If Flaxie Frizzle dies, I want to die too! She's the only twin cousin
I've got in the world."

In a short time, considering how far he had ridden, Uncle Ben came home,
but without Dr. Pulsifer, who had gone away, and could not be there
before to-morrow noon.

"I'm so disappointed," said Aunt Charlotte, looking pale and ill enough
herself to be in bed. "But the poor little thing is asleep now, and
perhaps she isn't so very sick after all. Do tell me if you think
there's any danger of brain-fever?"

"Well, I think this," replied Uncle Ben, leaning over the bed and taking
a long look at the little patient; "_I_ don't know what ails her! It may
be diphtheria, and then again it may be common sore throat; but if she
isn't better in the morning, we'll telegraph to her father, for a child
that can turn yellow and pea-green, as she did last spring, is capable
of almost anything."

"That is true," said Aunt Charlotte; "one never knows what she is going
to do next." And then she looked at Flaxie, and sighed. It was
wonderful what a power she had of keeping her friends in a worry, this
little pink and white slip of a