y sat a while at the bedside and finally took her
way homeward in a state of utter depression for which she could
scarcely account.

It was dusk--almost dark--when she reached the gate, and she noted
carelessly a vehicle drawn up before it.

"Johnnie," called her mother's voice from the back of the rickety old
wagon as the girl was turning in toward the steps.

"Sis' Johnnie--Sis' Johnnie!" crowed Deanie; and then she was aware of
sober, eleven-year-old Milo climbing down over the wheel and trying to
help Lissy, while Pony got in his way and was gravely reproved. She ran
to the wheel and put up ready arms.

"Why, honeys!" she exclaimed. "How come you-all never let me know to
expect you? Oh, I'm so glad, mother. I didn't intend to send you word to
come; but I was feeling so blue. I sure wanted to. Maybe Uncle Pros
might know you--or the baby--and it would do him good."

She had got little Deanie out in her arms now, and stood hugging the
child, bending to kiss Melissa, finding a hand to pat Milo's shoulder
and rub Pony's tousled poll.

"Oh, I'm so glad!--I'm so glad to see you-all," she kept repeating. "Who
brought you?" She looked closely at the man on the driver's seat and
recognized Gideon Himes.

"Why, Pap!" she exclaimed. "I'll never forget you for this. It was
mighty good of you."

The door swung open, letting out a path of light.

"Aunt Mavity!" cried the girl. "Mother and the children have come down
to see me. Isn't it fine?"

Mavity Bence made her appearance in the doorway, her faded eyes so
reddened with weeping that she looked like a woman in a fever. She
gulped and stared from her father, where in the shine of her upheld lamp
he sat blinking and grinning, to Laurella Consadine in a ruffled
pink-and-white lawn frock, with a big, rose-wreathed hat on her dark
curls, and Johnnie Consadine with the children clinging about her.

"Have ye told her?" she gasped. And at the tone Johnnie turned quickly,
a sudden chill falling upon her glowing mood.

"What's the matter?" she asked, startled, clutching the baby tighter to
her, and conning over with quick alarm the tow-heads that bobbed and
surged about her waist. "The children are all right--aren't they?"

Milo looked up apprehensively. He was an old-faced, anxious-looking,
little fellow, already beginning to have a stoop to his thin
shoulders--the bend of the burden bearer.

"I--I done the best I could, Sis' Johnnie," he hesitated apologetically.
"You