about--"

"No; you are tired. You must lie down."

"Who is that stout old gentleman going into the Price house?" Mrs. North
said, lingering at the window.

"Oh, that's your Alfred Price," her daughter answered; and added, that
she hoped her mother would be pleased with the house. "We have boarded
so long, I think you'll enjoy a home of your own."

"Indeed I shall!" cried Mrs. North, her eyes snapping with delight.
"Mary, I'll wash the breakfast dishes, as my mother used to do!"

"Oh no," Mary North protested; "it would tire you. I mean to take every
care from your mind."

"But," Mrs. North pleaded, "you have so much to do; and--"

"Never mind about me," said the daughter, earnestly; "you are my first
consideration."

"I know it, my dear," said Mrs. North, meekly. And when Old Chester came
to make its call, one of the first things she said was that her Mary
was such a good daughter. Miss North, her anxious face red with
determination, bore out the assertion by constantly interrupting the
conversation to bring a footstool, or shut a window, or put a shawl over
her mother's knees. "My mother's limb troubles her," she explained to
visitors (in point of modesty, Mary North did not leave her mother a leg
to stand on); then she added, breathlessly, with her tremulous smile,
that she wished they would please not talk too much. "Conversation tires
her," she explained. At which the little, pretty old lady opened and
closed her hands, and protested that she was not tired at all. But the
callers departed. As the door closed behind them, Mrs. North was ready
to cry.

"Now, Mary, really!" she began.

"Mother, I don't care! I don't like to say a thing like that, though
I'm sure I always try to speak politely. But it's the truth, and to save
you I would tell the truth no matter how painful it was to do so."

"But I enjoy seeing people, and--"

"It is bad for you to be tired," Mary said, her thin face quivering
still with the effort she had made; "and they sha'n't tire you while I
am here to protect you." And her protection never flagged. When Captain
Price called, she asked him to please converse in a low tone, as noise
was bad for her mother. "He had been here a good while before I came
in," she defended herself to Mrs. North, afterwards; "and I'm sure I
spoke politely."

The fact was, the day the Captain came, Miss North was out. Her mother
had seen him pounding up the street, and hurrying to the door, called
out, g