Oh, I'll tell you what it is, you fellows: if I couldn't go home for the holidays--especially Christmas--I think I'd just sit down and die." "Oh, no, you wouldn't," said Shivers; "you'd hate it and you'd get ever so homesick and miserable, but you wouldn't die over it.

You'd just get through somehow, and hope something would happen before next year, or that some kind fairy or other would--" "Bosh! there are no fairies nowadays," said Fellowes.

"See here, Shivers: I'll write home and ask my Mother if she won't invite you to come back with me for the holidays." "Will you really ?" "Yes, I will: and if she says yes, we shall have such a splendid time, because, you know, we live in London, and go to everything, and have heaps of tips and parties and fun." "Perhaps she will say no," suggested poor little Shivers, who had steeled himself to the idea that there would be no Christmas holidays for him, excepting that he would have no lessons for so many weeks.
"My Mother isn't at all the kind of woman who says no," Fellowes declared loudly.
In a few days' time, however, a letter arrived from his Mother which he opened eagerly.
"My own darling boy," it said, "I am so very sorry to have to tell you that dear little Aggie is down with scarlet fever, and so you cannot come home for your holidays, nor yet bring your young friend with you, as I would have loved you to do if all had been well here.

Your Aunt Adelaide would have had you there, but her two girls have both got scarlatina--and I believe Aggie got hers there, though, of course, poor Aunt Adelaide could not help it.

I did think about your going to Cousin Rachel's.