“Now we’ve gone and spilled the beans,” whispered slangy Laura, eyeing the blameless hamper disapprovingly as she warmed her chilled hands before the stove. “I don’t suppose she will touch a thing now, and after we went and walked all this way, and everything, too——” “Sh-h,” cautioned Billie, a hand to her lips. “She’s coming back.” At that moment Mrs. Haddon did indeed come back into the kitchen. She closed the door very gently behind her and then came quickly toward the girls. “Listen,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t know who sent you, just now. Maybe it was God.” She caught her breath on the words and the girls regarded her wonderingly and a little fearfully. For goodness’ sake! _what_ was she talking about? “Anyway, you’ve come,” went on the woman, swiftly. “And if you want to, you can do me a great favor.” “What is it?” they asked together. “Run for the nearest doctor, one of you—or all of you,” said the woman, her words stumbling over one another in her agitation. “Peter, my little boy, is sick. If I don’t have a doctor very soon, he may die.” “Oh, where is the nearest doctor?” asked Billie, breathlessly, her eyes big with sympathy. “Tell me and I’ll go.” “Half a mile down the road!” said the woman. “Dr. Ramsey! In the big white house! These are his office hours. He should be at home. I just went to a neighbor’s, but she was not at home and I could not go myself. Peter would have been alone——” “I’ll go, and I’ll have him back here in half an hour,” promised Billie, running to the door as she spoke. But Laura grabbed her skirt and held on to it. “No, you stay here. I’ll go,” she said, thinking desperately of the food hamper and fearing that if Billie went for the doctor she would probably have to explain their mission. “I’ll go with you,” volunteered Vi, with the same thought in mind, and before Billie could do more than blink, her two chums had flashed through the door, closing it with a sharp little click behind them. Then it opened again for an instant and Laura put her pretty head inside. “You always could explain things so much better than the rest of us, Billie,” she said, by way of excuse, it is to be supposed—and then the door closed again. It was good for Billie at that moment that she had been blessed with a sense of humor. Otherwise, she might have been a little put out. As it was, she took it as a joke on her and turned back resignedly to her task of telling why they had come to proud Polly Haddon. The latter was pacing the floor anxiously. Then, as a little moan came from the next room, she flew to the patient, leaving Billie entirely alone. The latter regarded the hamper uncertainly for a moment, then, with a sigh, she lifted it from the floor to the rickety kitchen table. “I’ll let her see all the good things first,” she decided wisely, as she removed the cover from the basket, exposing to view its inviting contents. “Then maybe she’ll be too busy looking at them to be angry.”