"What forever is that, Doctor?" demanded Mrs. MacCall.
"I hope it's something to make these children sick," declared the doctor, gruffly. "They are too disgracefully healthy for anything."
"Yes, thank our stars!" said the housekeeper.
"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried the apparently very savage medical man. "But what would become of all us poor doctors if everybody were as healthy as this family, I'd like to know?" and he tramped out to his car again in much make-believe wrath.
Dot came first from school and was shown the box. It was only about six inches square and it had a card tied to it addressed to both her and Tess. Dot eyed it with the roundest of round eyes, when she heard who had brought it.
"Why don't you open it, child?" demanded Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be downstairs. "Bring it here and I'll snip the string for you with my scissors."
"Oh! I couldn't, Aunt Sarah!" Dot declared.
"Why not, I should admire to know?" snapped the old lady. "It's not too heavy for you to carry, I should hope?"
"Oh, no, ma'am. But I can't open it till Tess comes," said Dot.
"Why not, I should admire to know?" repeated Aunt Sarah, in her jerky way.
"Why, it wouldn't be fair," said the smallest Corner House girl, gravely.
"Tess wouldn't do that to me," Dot said, with assurance.
Agnes chanced to get home next. "What ever do you s'pose is in it, Dottums?" she cried. "There's no name on it except yours and Tess'. And the doctor brought it!"
"Yes. But I know it isn't pills," declared Dot, seriously.
"The box is too big," was the prompt reply. "He brings pills in just the _cunningest_ little boxes."
"Maybe it's charlotte russe," suggested Agnes. "They put them in boxes like this at the bakery."
"Oh! do you think so?" gasped Dot, scarcely able to contain herself.
"If they are charlotte rushings," chuckled Neale, who had brought home Agnes' books for her, "be careful and not be so piggish as the country boy who ate the pasteboard containers as well as the cake and cream of the charlotte russe. He said he liked them fine, only the crust was tough."
"Mercy!" ejaculated Agnes. "That's like a boy."
"I _do_ hope Tess comes pretty quick!" murmured Dot. "I--I'm just about going crazy!"
Tess came finally; but at first she was so excited by something that had happened in school that she could not listen to Dot's pleading that she should "come and look at the box."