was the nature of Elizabeth's trouble, Mother
MacAllister would prove an excellent doctor.

But Elizabeth took the bowl. "No, I must attend to Eppie myself. Aunt
Margaret does not want you to be with her. Never mind me, Mary dear,
I've made a big muddle of things, as usual, but it can't be helped now.
I shall go and see Mother MacAllister as soon as Eppie goes to sleep."

It was afternoon before Elizabeth found an opportunity to leave.
Eppie's cough was painful and persistent, and Miss Gordon kept her room
prostrated with a nervous headache. But late in the day both invalids
sank into slumber, and finding nothing to do, Elizabeth flung on her
coat and hat and fled downstairs.

She paused for a moment at the study door as she passed. Her father
was sitting at his desk, over his accounts. Elizabeth approached and
gently laid her hand upon his shoulder. It was a very thin, stooped
shoulder now, and the hair on his bowed head was almost white. The
mental picture of him being driven from The Dale through her act rose
up before his daughter, and choked her utterance. Unaccustomed to any
affectionate demonstrations as the Gordon training had made her, she
could not even put her arms about his neck, as she longed to do, but
stood by him silent, her hand on his shoulder.

"Well, Mary, child," he said in his absent way. Then he glanced up.
"Eh, eh, it's little Lizzie? Well, well! Tuts, tuts, of course you
are home again." He patted the hand on his shoulder affectionately.

"Are you glad to have me home, father?" whispered the girl when she
could find her voice. It was a foolish question, but she longed to
hear him say she was welcome.

"Glad?" he said. "Tuts, tuts, there's been no sunshine in the house
since 'Lizbeth left. Eh, eh, indeed, I think I must just be sending
word to that Mrs. Jarvis that I can't spare you any longer."

Elizabeth smiled wanly. She could not trust herself to speak again.
She wanted to tell him she had come home to stay, and all that her
homecoming meant. But she could not bear to trouble him. She merely
patted his hand and slipped away before the tears could come.

The radiant morning had been succeeded by a dull afternoon. Every opal
and diamond of the opening day had vanished. Low sullen clouds drifted
over the dim-colored earth, and the wind was chill and dreary.
Elizabeth's mood was in perfect accord with the grayness. She was
about to give herself up to melancholy when