north side of the
house. Piles of clothes to be mended, laundry to be put away, a mop
and a carpet sweeper greeted me as I went in. The floor was untidy
with scraps of cloth pushed into a corner behind the sewing machine.
The mantel was decorated with spools of thread, cards of hooks and
eyes, and a pin-cushion with threaded needles stuck in it. The bed
was uncomfortable. I crawled into it, and lay very still. My heart
was filled with bitterness. My eyes rested on the skeleton of a
dressmaker's form. A man's shirt ripped up the back hung over a
chair. I staid for three days in that room! Mrs. Morgan's family
physician called the first night, and announced to Mrs. Morgan that
probably I was coming down with a slight attack of tonsilitis. I
thought at least it was diphtheria or double pneumonia. There were
pains in my back. When I tried to look at the dressmaker's skeleton
it jiggled uncomfortably before my eyes.

I didn't see the new guests once. Even Henrietta was allowed to speak
to me only from across the hall.

"Tonsilitis _is_ catching, you know, my dear," Mrs. Morgan sweetly
purred from heights above me, "and I'd never forgive myself if the
other two girls caught anything here. I've forbidden Henrietta to see
you. She's so susceptible to germs." I felt I was an unholy creature,
teeming with microbes.

The room was warm; they fed me; they cared for me; but I begged the
doctor for an early deliverance on Monday morning. I longed for home. I
cried for it a little. Edith couldn't have known that I was ill; she
would have opened her arms wide if she had guessed--of course she would.
I ought to have gone in the beginning. I poured out my story into that
old doctor's understanding ears, and he opened the way for me finally.
He let me escape. Very weak and wobbly I took an early train on Monday
morning for Hilton. At the same time I sent the following telegram to my
sister-in-law: "Arrive Hilton 6:15 tonight. Have been ill. Still some
fever, but doctor finally consents to let me come."

Six fearful hours later I found myself, weak-kneed and trembling, on the
old home station platform. I was on the verge of tears. I looked up and
down for Edith's anxious face, or for Alec's--they would be disturbed
when they heard I had a fever, they might be alarmed--but I couldn't
find them. The motor was not at the curb either. I stepped into a
telephone-booth and called the house. Edith answered herself. I
recognized her quick stac