Whatever the dream was, she was rudely roused from it by the wreched little Israel, who came bounding up the stairs, and, without word or warning, burst into the room, almost white with horror.  Why Israel was afraid I can’t conjecture, but, at any rate, a permanent fright would have been of great personal advantage to him.  “Oh, ma’am! oh, miss! dere’s a pusson down stairs, a cullud woman, wid der small-pox!” he almost whistled in his alarm.

“With the small-pox!” cried Aunt Pen, springing into the middle of the floor, regardless of her late repose in articulo mortis.  “Go away, Israel!  Have you been near her?  Put her out immediately!  How on earth did she get there?”

“You allus telled me to let everybody in,” chattered Israel.

“Put her out! put her out!” cried Aunt Pen, half dancing with impatience.

“We can’t get her out.  She’s right acrost der door-step.  We’s feared ter tech her.”

But Aunt Pen’s head was out of the window, and she was shouting:  “Police! fire! murder! thieves!” possibly in the order of importance of the four calamities, but quite as if she had a plenty of breath left; and, for a wonder, the police came to the rescue, and directly afterward an ambulance took the poor victim of the frightful epidemic to the hospital.  I believe it turned out to be only measles after all, though.

“Run, Israel!” screamed Aunt Pen then; “run instantly and bring home a couple of pounds of roll-brimstone, and tell the maids to riddle the furnace fire and make it as bright and hot as possible, and to light fires in the parlor grates, and in the old Latrobe, and in every room in the house, without losing a minute.  We’ll make this house too warm for it!”

And, to our amazement, as soon as Israel came darting back with the impish material, Aunt Pen took a piece in each hand, directed us to do the same, and wrapping the blue afghan round her shoulders, descended to the lower rooms three steps at a time, sent for the doctor to come and vaccinate us, and having set a chair precisely over the register where a red-hot stream of air was pouring up, she placed herself upon it and issued her orders.

Every window was closed, every grate from basement to attic had a fire lighted in it, and little pans of brimstone were burning in every room and hall in the house, while we, astonished, indignant, frightened, and amused, sat enduring the torments of vapor and sulphur baths to the point of suffocation.

“I can’t bear this another moment,” wheezed Mel.

“It’s the only way,” replied Aunt Pen, serenely, with a rivulet trickling down her nose.  “You kill the germs by heat, and since we can’t bake ourselves quite to death, we make sure of the work by the fumes.”

And as she sat there, her face rubicund, her swan’s-down straight, drops on her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, and wherever drops could cling, her eyes watering, her curls limp, and an atmosphere of unbearable odor enveloping her in its cloud, the front door opened, and a footstep rung on the tiles.