"What's the matter?--are you feeling bad, granny? Do you want something?" "Yes, I'm feeling very bad. I'm ill, I'm very ill--oh, dear, oh dear, what shall I do? Oh, I've no one to come and do anything for me. Oh, dear, oh what can I do?" Granny's groans were dreadful. Mona felt frightened and helpless. She had not the least idea what to do or say. What did grown-ups do at times like this? she wondered. She did not know where, or how, her grandmother suffered, and if she had she would not have known how to act. "Do you want me to fetch the doctor? I'll go and put on my clothes. I won't be more than a minute or two, then I'll come back again----" "No--no, I can't be left alone all the time, I might die--here, alone; oh dear, oh dear, what a plight to be left in! Not a living creature to come to me--but a child! Oh, how bad I do feel!" "But I must do something, or call somebody," cried Mona desperately. She had never seen serious illness before, and she was frightened. Poor old Mrs. Barnes had always been a bad patient, and difficult to manage, even when her ailments were only trifling; now that she really felt ill, she had lost all control. "Granny," said Mona, growing desperate. "I must get someone to come and help us, you must have the doctor, and I can't leave you alone, I am going to ask Mrs. Lane to come, I can't help it--I can't do anything else. I'll slip on my shoes and stockings, I won't be more than a minute." Granny Barnes stopped moaning, and raised herself on her elbow. "You'll do no such thing," she gasped. "But granny, I must--you must have help, and you must have somebody to go for the doctor, and--and, oh, granny, I'm afraid to be here alone, I don't know what to do, and you're looking so bad." "Am I?" nervously. "Well--if I've got to die alone and helpless, I will, but I won't ask Mrs. Lane to come to me. Do you think I'd--ask a favour of her, after all her unneighbourliness--not speaking to me for weeks and weeks----" Mona burst into tears, confession had to come. "Granny," she said, dropping on her knees beside the bed. "I--I've got to tell you something--Mrs. Lane was right----" "What!" Granny's face grew whiter, but she said no more. If she had done so, if she had but spoken kindly and helped her ever so little, it would have made things much easier for poor Mona. "I--I--it was me that pulled the faggots down that night, and not Mrs. Lane's cats, and she won't look, or speak to me because I didn't tell, and I let her cats bear the blame. I--I didn't mean to do any harm, I was in such a hurry to light up the fire, and the old things all rolled down, and I forgot to go out and pick them up again. I didn't think you'd be going out there that night, but you went out, and--and fell over them. If you hadn't gone out it would have been all right, I'd have seen them in the morning and have picked them up."