"What's wrong with Mama?" I asked my sister. I had been shooed from her room the night before and ordered to bed without with any warm milk. And this morning Mama hadn't been at the breakfast table.
Instead we'd had to suffer through a silent meal with Nanny Newton. Normally, young Bertram found breakfast a rather jolly event, with eggs and rashers and fruit arranged on the plate to present a pleasing visage staring back at me.
This morning, however, the entire house seemed silent. The black crape from father's funeral still adorned several furnishings in the house. And now Mama wasn't up and about.
"I don't know." came my sister's hushed reply. "Doctor Anderson came about an hour ago and Milton has been in their with him the entire time."