she said. "That's only Mr.
Carter shooting rabbits. I saw him go out as I started down the path."

I was still nervous when I put on my shawl and picked up the basket.
But there was a puddle on the floor and the soup had spilled. There
was nothing for it but to go back for more soup, and I got it from the
kitchen without the chef seeing me. When I opened the spring-house door
again Mr. Pierce was by the fire, and in front of him, where I'd left
the basket, lay a dead rabbit. He was sitting there with his chin in his
hands looking at the poor thing, and there was no basket in sight.

"Well," I asked, "did you change my basket into a dead rabbit?"

"Basket!" he said, looking up. "What basket?"

I looked everywhere, but the basket was gone, and after a while I
decided that Mr. Dick had had an attack of thoughtfulness (or hunger)
and had carried it out himself.

And all the time I looked for the basket Mr. Pierce sat with the gun
across his knees and stared at the rabbit.

"I'd thank you to take that messy thing out of here," I told him.

"Poor little chap!" he exclaimed. "He was playing in the snow, and
I killed him--not because I wanted food or sport, Minnie, but--well,
because I had to kill something."

"I hope you don't have those attacks often," I said. He looked at the
rabbit and sighed.

"Never in my life!" he answered. "For food or sport, that's different,
but--blood-lust!" He got up and put the gun in the corner, and I saw he
looked white and miserable.

"I don't like myself to-night, Minnie," he said, trying to smile, "and
nobody likes me. I'm going into the garden to eat worms!"

I didn't like to scold him when he was feeling bad anyhow, but business
is business. So I asked him how long he thought people would stay if he
acted as he had that day. I said that a sanatorium was a place where
the man who runs it can't afford to have likes and dislikes; that for my
part I'd a good deal rather he'd get rid of his excitement by shooting
off a gun, provided he pointed it away from the house, than to sit
around and let his mind explode and kill all our prospects. I told him,
too, to remember that he wasn't responsible for the morals or actions of
his guests, only for their health.

"Health!" he echoed, and kicked a chair. "Health! Why, if I wanted to
keep a good dog in condition, Minnie, I wouldn't bring him here."

"No," I retorted, "you'd shut him in an old out oven, and give him a
shoe to chew, and he'd