It was her
first appearance, but as she was always late, nobody noticed.
When she stopped, just above us on the stairs, however, we looked
up, and she was holding to the rail and trembling perceptibly.
"Mr. Harbison, will you--can you come upstairs?" she asked. Her
voice was strained, almost reedy, and her lips were white.
Mr. Harbison stared up at her, with the telephone box in his
hands.
"Why--er--certainly," he said, "but, unless it's very important,
I'd like to fix this talking machine. We want to make a food
record."
"I'd like to break a food record," Max put in, but Bella created
a diversion by sitting down suddenly on the stair just above us,
and burying her face in her handkerchief.
"Jim is sick," she said, with a sob. "He--he doesn't want
anything to eat, and his head aches. He--said for me--to go away
and let him die!"
Dal dropped the hammer immediately, and Lollie Mercer sat
petrified, with a bonbon halfway to her mouth. For, of course, it
was unexpected, finding sentiment of any kind in Bella, and none
of them knew about the scene in the den in the small hours of the
morning.
"Sick!" Aunt Selina said, from a hall chair. "Sick! Where?"
"All over," Bella quavered. "His poor head is hot, and he's
thirsty, but he doesn't want anything but water."
"Great Scott!" Dal said suddenly.
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