How it happened that, in spite of the strict interdict laid upon all visitors at Mrs. Tree's house, Tommy Candy found his way in, nobody knows to this day. Direxia Hawkes found him in the front entry one afternoon, and pounced upon him with fury. The boy showed every sign of guilt and terror, but refused to say why he had come or what he wanted. As he was hustled out of the door a voice from above was heard to cry, "The ivory elephant for your own, mind, and a box of the kind with nuts in it!" Sometimes Jocko could imitate his mistress's voice to perfection. Mrs. Weight, whom the news of Mrs. Tree's actual illness had wrought to a fever-pitch of observation, saw the boy come out, and carried the word at once to Mrs. Pryor; in ten minutes that lady was at the door clamoring for entrance. Direxia, her apron at her eyes, was firm, but evidently in distress. "She's took to her bed!" she said. "I darsn't let you in; it'd be as much as my life is wuth and her'n too, the state she's in. I think she's out of her head, Mis' Pryor. There! she's singin' this minute; do hear her! Oh, my poor lady! I wish Doctor Stedman would come!" Over the stairs came floating, in a high-pitched thread of voice, a scrap of eldritch song: "Tiddy hi, toddy ho, Tiddy hi hum, Thus was it when Barbara Popkins was young!" Mrs. Pryor hastened back and told Miss Vesta that their aunt was delirious, and had probably but a few hours to live. Poor Miss Vesta! she would have broken through any interdict and flown to her aunt's side; but she herself was housed with a heavy, feverish cold, and Doctor Stedman's commands were absolute. "You may say what you like to your friend," he said, "but you must obey your physician. I know what I am about, and I forbid you to leave the house!" At these words Miss Vesta leaned back on her sofa-pillow with a gentle sigh. James did know what he was about, of course; and--since he had privately assured her that he did not consider Mrs. Tree in any danger, and since she really felt quite unable to stand, much less to go out--it was very comfortable to be absolutely forbidden to do so. Still it was not a pleasant day for Miss Vesta. Mrs. Pryor never left her side, declaring that _this_ duty at least she could and would perform, and Vesta might be assured she would never desert her; and the stream of talk about the Darracott blood, the family portraits, and the astonishing moral obliquity of most persons except Mrs. Pryor herself, flowed on and around and over Miss Vesta's aching head till she felt that she was floating away on waves of the fluid which is thicker than water.