o fetch you." "All right," said Lapham, and paid and
went out. "I don't know but I SHALL want some of it," he said, with a
joyless laugh.

Irene came closer up to him and took his arm. He laid his heavy paw on
her gloved fingers. After a while she said, "I want you should let me
go up to Lapham to-morrow."

"To Lapham? Why, to-morrow's Sunday, Irene! You can't go to-morrow."

"Well, Monday, then. I can live through one day here."

"Well," said the father passively. He made no pretence of asking her
why she wished to go, nor any attempt to dissuade her.

"Give me that bottle," she said, when he opened the door at home for
her, and she ran up to her own room.

The next morning Irene came to breakfast with her mother; the Colonel
and Penelope did not appear, and Mrs. Lapham looked sleep-broken and
careworn.

The girl glanced at her. "Don't you fret about me, mamma," she said.
"I shall get along." She seemed herself as steady and strong as rock.

"I don't like to see you keeping up so, Irene," replied her mother.
"It'll be all the worse for you when you do break. Better give way a
little at the start."

"I shan't break, and I've given way all I'm going to. I'm going to
Lapham to-morrow,--I want you should go with me, mamma,--and I guess I
can keep up one day here. All about it is, I don't want you should say
anything, or LOOK anything. And, whatever I do, I don't want you
should try to stop me. And, the first thing, I'm going to take her
breakfast up to her. Don't!" she cried, intercepting the protest on
her mother's lips. "I shall not let it hurt Pen, if I can help it.
She's never done a thing nor thought a thing to wrong me. I had to fly
out at her last night; but that's all over now, and I know just what
I've got to bear."

She had her way unmolested. She carried Penelope's breakfast to her,
and omitted no care or attention that could make the sacrifice
complete, with an heroic pretence that she was performing no unusual
service. They did not speak, beyond her saying, in a clear dry note,
"Here's your breakfast, Pen," and her sister's answering, hoarsely and
tremulously, "Oh, thank you, Irene." And, though two or three times
they turned their faces toward each other while Irene remained in the
room, mechanically putting its confusion to rights, their eyes did not
meet. Then Irene descended upon the other rooms, which she set in
order, and some of which she fiercely swept and dusted. She made