She had got up very early in the morning and had workedhard in the garden and she was tired and sleepy, so as soonas Martha had brought her supper and she had eaten it,she was glad to go to bed. As she laid her head onthe pillow she murmured to herself:

　　"I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickonand then afterward--I believe--I'll go to see him."She thought it was the middle of the night when she wasawakened by such dreadful sounds that she jumped out ofbed in an instant. What was it--what was it? The nextminute she felt quite sure she knew. Doors were openedand shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridorsand some one was crying and screaming at the same time,screaming and crying in a horrible way.

　　"It's Colin," she said. "He's having one of those tantrumsthe nurse called hysterics. How awful it sounds."As she listened to the sobbing screams she did notwonder that people were so frightened that they gavehim his own way in everything rather than hear them.

　　She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and shivering.

　　"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do,"she kept saying. "I can't bear it."Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared goto him and then she remembered how he had driven her outof the room and thought that perhaps the sight of hermight make him worse. Even when she pressed her handsmore tightly over her ears she could not keep the awfulsounds out. She hated them so and was so terrifiedby them that suddenly they began to make her angryand she felt as if she should like to fly into a tantrumherself and frighten him as he was frightening her.

　　She was not used to any one's tempers but her own. She tookher hands from her ears and sprang up and stamped her foot.

　　"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop!

　　Somebody ought to beat him!" she cried out.

　　Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridorand her door opened and the nurse came in. She was notlaughing now by any means. She even looked rather pale.

　　"He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry.

　　"He'll do himself harm. No one can do anything with him.

　　You come and try, like a good child. He likes you.""He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary,stamping her foot with excitement.

　　The stamp rather pleased the nurse. The truth was that shehad been afraid she might find Mary crying and hidingher head under the bed-clothes.

　　"That's right," she said. "You're in the right humor.

　　You go and scold him. Give him something new to think of.

　　Do go, child, as quick as ever you can."It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thinghad been funny as well as dreadful--that it was funny that allthe grown-up people were so frightened that they came to a littlegirl just because they guessed she was almost as bad as Colinhimself.

　　She flew along the corridor and the nearer she gotto the screams the higher her temper mounted.

　　She felt quite wicked by the time she reached the door.

　　She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the roomto the four-posted bed.

　　"You stop!" she almost shouted. "You stop! I hate you!

　　Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run out of thehouse and let you scream yourself to death! You will screamyourself to death in a minute, and I wish you would!"A nice sympathetic child could neither have thought norsaid such things, but it just happened that the shock ofhearing them was the best possible thing for this hystericalboy whom no one had ever dared to restrain or contradict.

　　He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with hishands and he actually almost jumped around, he turnedso quickly at the sound of the furious little voice.

　　His face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen,and he was gasping and choking; but savage little Mary didnot care an atom.

　　"If you scream another scream," she said, "I'll screamtoo --and I can scream louder than you can and I'llfrighten you, I'll frighten you!"He actually had stopped screaming because she had startledhim so. The scream which had been coming almost choked him.

　　The tears were streaming down his face and he shookall over.

　　"I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed. "I can't--I can't!""You can!" shouted Mary. "Half that ails you is hystericsand temper--just hysterics--hysterics--hysterics!"and she stamped each time she said it.

　　"I felt the lump--I felt it," choked out Colin.

　　"I knew I should. I shall have a hunch on my back and thenI shall die," and he began to writhe again and turnedon his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't scream.

　　"You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary fiercely. "If youdid it was only a hysterical lump. Hysterics makes lumps.

　　There's nothing the matter with your horrid back--nothingbut hysterics! Turn over and let me look at it!"She liked the word "hysterics" and felt somehow as if ithad an effect on him. He was probably like herselfand had never heard it before.

　　"Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show me his backthis minute!"The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standinghuddled together near the door staring at her, their mouthshalf open. All three had gasped with fright more than once.

　　The nurse came forward as if she were half afraid.

　　Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs.

　　"Perhaps he--he won't let me," she hesitated in a low voice.

　　Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between twosobs:

　　"Sh-show her! She-she'll see then!"It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared.

　　Every rib could be counted and every joint of the spine,though Mistress Mary did not count them as she bent overand examined them with a solemn savage little face.

　　She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turnedher head aside to hide the twitching of her mouth.

　　There was just a minute's silence, for even Colin triedto hold his breath while Mary looked up and down his spine,and down and up, as intently as if she had been the greatdoctor from London.

　　"There's not a single lump............