A wail from the doorway, "Letty play! Shoot Letty!" Catherine ran past them, gathering the child into her arms. Her hand, closing over the small feet, found them dry, hot, and the weight of the child seemed to scorch through her blouse against her shoulder. "What's the matter with my baby?" Charles followed them. "Let me have her, Catherine." "She's supposed to be in bed." Catherine covered her with the blanket. "Now you stay there, young lady! Mother will come in soon." She touched the scarlet cheek, her fingers feather soft. Letty's eyelids, heavy and dark, drooped, and her protest broke off. Catherine drew Charles into the hall. "Would you call up Dr. Henrietta? I think her fever is coming up." "Is she sick?" Charles looked aggrieved at this intrusion upon his mood. "I hope not." Catherine gave him a little push. "Call her up, and see when she can come in. I'll have dinner on directly." The wild animals were washed and combed, and dinner served when Charles came out of the study. "She's not in. Probably at dinner. I left word with the clerk. But I say, Catherine. I got tickets for 'Liliom' to-night." He looked blankly disappointed. "You said you wanted to see it, and I was downtown. Good seats, too." "Oh, Charles!" "And I even called up that girl we had last year, to stay with the children. That graduate student, you know." "Well." Catherine lifted her hands in a little gesture of resignation. "If Letty's sick-- But 'Liliom'! I do want to go." "Maybe she'll be all right when she's asleep." But she wasn't. Eight o'clock came, with Charles fidgeting like a lamprey eel on a hook, and no word from Henrietta. Letty was asleep, her hands twitching restlessly. Catherine shook her head, as she read the thermometer. "I can't go, Charles. Almost a hundred and one." "What ails her? Has that woman you've got been feeding her pickles?" The door bell rang. Charles, with a mutter of "Dr. Henry, perhaps," rushed to the door. He came back. "It's Miss Brown, come to stay the evening. What shall I tell her?" "Tell her I can't go." Catherine was abrupt. She was disappointed and she was fighting off a sturdily growing fear about the next day,--and she resented Charles's air of injury. "I hate to, after I begged her to come in." Catherine brushed hastily past him and went to the door. Miss Brown, a plump, pale, garrulous woman of middle age, a southerner, waited. "Letty, the baby, isn't very well," explained Catherine. "Nice of you to come in so promptly. Some other night, perhaps." And presently the door could be closed upon Miss Brown's profuseness of pity. Charles was glooming about his study. "When you leave them all day for your job," he said, "I should think you might----" "No, you shouldn't think!" Catherine laughed at him. "You're as bad as Spencer, little boy!" The bell rang again. "That's Henry!" Catherine hurried to the door, and opened it to Stella Partridge's little squirrel smile and extended hand.