"Why what's the matter, Holly Belle?" she asked.
"Ma's sick," said Holly Belle, rubbing her sleeve across her eyes.
"I dunno. I guess she's pretty bad. She had highstericks this morning at dawn, but she wouldn't let me call your mother until she was sure by the smell of the coffee that you'd had your breakfast. I don't know what's the matter with her. I gave her all the kinds of medicine we had in the house, and there ain't none of 'em that seemed to do her a mite of good. Your ma's here now, and she seems to be a little better. But you know I heard the death tick in the wall, and I'm scaret to death." And the tears rose again.
"What's a death tick?" inquired Miss Billy, putting her arm reassuringly about the sorrowing little girl.
"It's a bug in the wall that always ticks when people are goin' to--to die," sobbed Holly Belle.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Miss Billy. "You don't believe that nonsense, do you? I can't think your mother is as sick as that, anyway. Is the doctor there?"
"Well then!" said Miss Billy triumphantly. "Mother would have had him there long ago if your mother was dangerously ill. She'll probably be all right in a day or two. Now cheer up, Holly Belle, and tell me what there is that I can do for you."
A loud shriek from the back of the house answered the question.
"It's the children," said Holly Belle. "They've been going on that way for an hour steady. I could make 'em behave, if it wasn't for Launkelot. But he's got up a new game, an' of course they're all bound to see it through."
"May I borrow them for a while?" asked Miss Billy.
Holly Belle gave a visible sigh of relief. "I sh'd say you can," she responded heartily.
There was no difficulty in finding the children, for a great hubbub in the back yard indicated that the small Canarys were having a decidedly hilarious and enlivening time during their mother's enforced retirement. Miss Billy went around the walk to the back of the Lee house, and surveyed her charges over the fence.
The back yard in the Canary premises had been partitioned off into little squares by means of a boot-heel which had grooved the hard dirt. In the first square sat Ginevra
"With raven ringlets unconfined, And blowing madly in the wind."