But a fellow can speak, can't he, without his body
a-following his voice? How's Phebe?"

"She's splendid."

"What's the doctor say?"

"He says she only needs to be kept perfectly quiet."

"Hooray!" said Dick, and apparently executed a war-dance on the
oil-cloth, while Olly profited by the general hubbub created by the
entrance of two more ladies, to satisfactorily investigate the
sponge-cake.

"Why, quite a levee, isn't it, Phebe?" said one of the last arrivals,
looking in vain for a chair, and forced to seat herself on a low table,
accidentally upsetting Phebe's medicines as she did so.

"Yes, altogether too much of one," said Gerald, knitting her brows as she
rescued a bottle just in time, and darted an angry glance around the
crowded room. "Phebe isn't at all equal to it yet."

"You are right, Miss Vernor," agreed Mrs. Upjohn, drawing out her
tatting from her pocket, and settling herself at it with an answering
frown. "There are quite too many here. Some people never know when to
stay away."

"Oh, there's Bell. I hear her voice," called Mattie, running to look over
the banisters. "She's got both Mr. De Forest and Mr. Moulton with her."

There was a sound of many voices below, a giggling, a rush for the
stairs, and a playful scuffle.

"It's me" (Bell's voice); "Dick won't let me pass."

"Me is Bell" (Dick's voice); "she wouldn't pass if she could. Too many
fellows down here for her to want to leave 'em. Send us down a girl or
two from up there, can't you?"

A girl or two, however, apparently appeared from outside, greetings were
called up to Phebe, offerings of flowers and delicacies transmitted _via_
Dick on the stairs to Olly at the top (who took toll by the way), and the
liveliest kind of a time went on. It was quite like a party, Dick shouted
up, only that there was no ice-cream and a singular scarcity of girls.

"It's a shame," said Mrs. Upjohn, severely, in her chair, while Gerald
held her peace, too wrathful to speak, and conscious of her inability to
mend matters. "I should think people might have sense enough not to crowd
all the air out of a sick-room in this fashion."

"It's exceedingly inconsiderate of them, I am sure," answered Mrs.
Hardcastle, drawing a sofa cushion behind her back. "She ought to be
so quiet."

"Phebe!" shouted Dick. "Here's the parson. He wants to know if you're
dead yet. Shan't I send him up? It will be all right, you know, quite
the thing. He's a parson, and wears a