vision of his sleeping, _dead_ face of a
month ago frightened her for a moment, painfully; but he had seemed
better since, though, as Dosia said, he didn't look well. Oh, when he
came home to-night----!

She dressed herself with a new care, putting on a soft yellowish gown
with a yoke of creamy lace, unworn for months. The color was more
brilliant than ever in her cheeks, her lips redder, her eyes more deeply
blue. The children exclaimed over their "pretty mama." She looked
younger, more beautiful, than Dosia had ever seen her. She could not
help saying:

"How lovely you are, Lois! And you're all dressed up, too; do you expect
any one?"

"Only Justin," said Lois.

"Only Justin"! The words brought an exquisite joy with them--only
Justin, the one man in all the world for her. There was but a half-hour
now until dinner-time. It had passed, and he had not come; but he was
often late-- Still he did not come; that happened too, sometimes. The
two women sat down to dinner alone, at last. The baby woke up afterward,
an unusual thing, and wailed, and would not stop. Lois, divested of her
rich apparel and once more swathed in a loose, shabby gown, rocked and
soothed the infant interminably, while Dosia, her efforts to help
unavailing, crouched over a book down-stairs, trying to read. After an
interval of quiet she went up-stairs, to find Lois at last lying down.

"It's eleven o'clock, Lois; I think I'll go to bed. Shall I leave the
gas burning down-stairs?"

"Yes, please do; he can't get anything now but the last train out."

"And you don't want me to stay here with you?"

"No--oh, no."

As once before, Lois waited for that train--yet how differently! If that
injured feeling rose, for an instant, at his not having sent her word,
she crushed it back as one would crush the head of a viper that showed
itself between the crevices of the hearthstone. She would not pity
herself--she would not pity herself! She knew now that madness lay that
way.

The night was clear and warm, the stars were shining, as she got up and
sat by the window, looking out from behind the curtain, her beautiful
braided hair over one shoulder. The last train came in; the people from
it, in twos and threes, straggled down the street, but not Justin. He
must have missed that last train out. Of course he must have missed it!

We are apt to fancy causeless disaster to those we love; the amount of
"worry" more or less willingly indulged in by uncontroll