how I heard Tillie
fainted away in a swoond day before yesterday, so this morning I come
over to see her oncet--Aunty Em she was some oneasy. And I seen she
would mebbe have another such a swoond if she didn't get a long day out
in the air. It's done her wonderful much good--wonderful!"

"She hadn't no need to stay all day!" growled Mr. Getz. "Mom had all
Tillie's work to do, and her own too, and she didn't get it through
all."

"Well, better LET the work than have Tillie havin' any more of them
dangerous swoonds. Them's dangerous, I tell you, Jake! Sometimes folks
never comes to, yet!"

Mr. Getz looked at Tillie apprehensively. "You better go in and get
your hot supper, Tillie," he said, not ungently.

Before this forbearance of her father, Tillie had a feeling of shame in
the doctor's subterfuges, as she bade her loyal friend good night and
turned to go indoors.

"You'll be over to Board meetin' to-night, ain't?" the doctor said to
Mr. Getz as he picked up the reins.

"To be sure! Me and Nathaniel Puntz has a statement to make to the
Board that'll chase that tony dude teacher off his job so quick he
won't have time to pack his trunk!"

"Is that so?" the doctor said in feigned surprise. "Well, he certainly
is some tony--that I must give him, Jake. Well, good night to yous! Be
careful of Tillie's health!"

Getz went into the house and the doctor, chuckling to himself, drove
away.

Tillie was in bed, but sleep was far from her eyes, when, late that
night, she heard her father return from the Board meeting. Long she lay
in her bed, listening with tense nerves to his suppressed tones as he
talked to his wife in the room across the hall, but she could not hear
what he said. Not even his tone of voice was sufficiently enlightening
as to how affairs had gone.

In her wakefulness the night was agonizingly long; for though she was
hopeful of the success of the doctor's plot, she knew that possibly
there might have been some fatal hitch.

At the breakfast-table, next morning, her father looked almost sick,
and Tillie's heart throbbed with unfilial joy in the significance of
this. His manner to her was curt and his face betrayed sullen anger; he
talked but little, and did not once refer to the Board meeting in her
presence.

It was not until ten o'clock, when he had gone with some of the
children to the Evangelical church, that she found her longed-for
opportunity to question her stepmother.

"Well," she began,