d sick with anxiety and suspense. Mrs.
Dering did not say much, but when the carriage came, and she put on her
hat, while the girls got the pillows, they saw that she was pale and
trembling, and that her voice shook beyond control when she gave Dr.
Barnett a smiling "good-morning."

There was nothing left to do, so after the carriage drove away the three
girls sat on the steps, with their hands clasped, and waited. Kittie
made one or two flying trips up stairs to see if everything was really
beyond further improvement, while Kat vibrated nervously between the
porch and the gate, and Bea sat still, looking at her ring, and
wondering if Ernestine would like the giver, and what she would say.

"There!" cried Kat at last, with a nervous jump. "The train is in, now
in just a little bit--"

It is possible that there was not a heart in Canfield but gave an
expectant throb when the rumble and roar of the train shook the little
place to its centre, and was heard to stop, a thing it did not often do;
and there were but few who did not imagine, and earnestly sympathize
with the joy it was bringing to one home in their midst.

"There they come! Oh, girls I feel perfectly faint," cried Kittie,
making a grasp at the gate post, to sustain her trembling excited self.
"How slow and careful,--she must be so sick."

No one answered, but six eager eyes watched, and three throbbing hearts
waited, as the horses came with slow steps, and the carriage rolled
carefully along. The top had been raised, and curious gazers along the
way could see nothing; neither could the girls, when at last the gate
was reached, but though they went out, something restrained their eager
joyous welcome, and they said nothing.

Olive got out first, then Mrs. Dering, and Dr. Barnett, and then came a
strange gentleman, bearing a perfectly helpless and evidently
unconscious figure, with its face covered; and the girls shrank back to
let them pass, then surrounded Olive with eager, trembling questions.

"She has fainted," Olive said. "She kept growing more excited after we
left New York, and I thought she would faint when we came in sight of
Canfield, but she didn't until the train stopped; and then the moment
she saw mama, she tried to speak, and fainted right away."

There was no time to ask, or answer further questions, as they hurried
into the house and up stairs, where Ernestine had been carried, and laid
upon the soft, snowy bed; but after one glance at h