depart.'

So we bunked, and Dora and Albert's uncle made Noel comfortable for the
night.

Then they came to the nursery which we had gone down to, and he sat down
in the Guy Fawkes chair and said, 'Now then.'

Alice said, 'You may tell them what I did. I daresay they'll all be in a
wax, but I don't care.'

'I think you were very wise,' said Albert's uncle, pulling her close to
him to sit on his knee. 'I am very glad you telegraphed.'

So then Oswald understood what Alice's secret was. She had gone out and
sent a telegram to Albert's uncle at Hastings. But Oswald thought she
might have told him. Afterwards she told me what she had put in the
telegram. It was, 'Come home. We have given Noel a cold, and I think we
are killing him.' With the address it came to tenpence-halfpenny.

Then Albert's uncle began to ask questions, and it all came out,
how Dicky had tried to catch the cold, but the cold had gone to Noel
instead, and about the medicines and all. Albert's uncle looked very
serious.

'Look here,' he said, 'You're old enough not to play the fool like this.
Health is the best thing you've got; you ought to know better than to
risk it. You might have killed your little brother with your precious
medicines. You've had a lucky escape, certainly. But poor Noel!'

'Oh, do you think he's going to die?' Alice asked that, and she was
crying again.

'No, no,' said Albert's uncle; 'but look here. Do you see how silly
you've been? And I thought you promised your Father--' And then he gave
us a long talking-to. He can make you feel most awfully small. At last
he stopped, and we said we were very sorry, and he said, 'You know I
promised to take you all to the pantomime?'

So we said, 'Yes,' and knew but too well that now he wasn't going to.
Then he went on--

'Well, I will take you if you like, or I will take Noel to the sea for a
week to cure his cold. Which is it to be?'

Of course he knew we should say, 'Take Noel' and we did; but Dicky told
me afterwards he thought it was hard on H. O.

Albert's uncle stayed till Eliza came in, and then he said good night in
a way that showed us that all was forgiven and forgotten.

And we went to bed. It must have been the middle of the night when
Oswald woke up suddenly, and there was Alice with her teeth chattering,
shaking him to wake him.

'Oh, Oswald!' she said, 'I am so unhappy. Suppose I should die in the
night!'

Oswald told her to go to bed and not gas. But she sa