he went away. Stella ran downstairs to the bedroom
where aunt Hill sat beside her mother, fanning the invalid with a
palm-leaf fan. Mrs. Joyce hated to be fanned in wintry weather, but aunt
Hill acted upon the theory that sick folks needed air. Aunt Hill was
very large, and she creaked as she breathed, because, when she was
visiting, even in the country, she put on her black silk of an
afternoon. She had thick black hair, smooth under a fictitious gloss,
and done in a way to be seen now only in daguerreotypes of long ago, and
her dull black eyes were masterful. Mrs. Joyce, gazing miserably up at
her daughter, was a shred of a thing in contrast, and Stella at once
felt a passionate pity for her.

"There, aunt Hill," she said daringly, "I wouldn't fan mother any more
if I's you. Let me see if I can get at you, mother. I'm goin' to rub
your back."

Aunt Hill, with a quiver of professional pride wounded to the quick, did
lay down the fan on a stand at her elbow. She was listening.

"Where's Jerry?" she demanded. "I don't hear nobody in the fore-room."

Stella was manipulating her mother with a brisk yet tender touch.

"Oh," she said, "I told him he'd have to poke along back to-night. I
wanted to rub mother 'fore she got sleepy."

"Now you needn't ha' done that," said Mrs. Joyce from a deep seclusion,
her face turned downward into the pillow. "He must be awful
disappointed, dressin' himself up an' all, an' 'pearin' out for
nothin'."

"Well," said Stella, "there's more Saturday nights comin'."

"I wanted to see Jerry," complained aunt Hill. "I could ha' set with
your mother. Well, I'll go in an' put out the fore-room lamp."

Stella was always being irritated by aunt Hill's officious services in
the domestic field, but now she was glad to watch her portly back
diminishing through the doorway.

"You needn't ha' done that," her mother was murmuring again. "I feel
real tried over it."

"Jerry wanted to know how you were," said Stella speciously. "He's awful
sorry you're laid up."

"Well, I knew he'd be," said Mrs. Joyce. "Jerry's a good boy."

The week went by and her back was better; but when Saturday night came,
aunt Hill had not gone home. She had, instead, slipped on a round stick
in the shed while she was picking up chips nobody wanted, and sprained
her ankle slightly. And now she sat by the kitchen fire in a state of
deepest gloom, the foot on a chair, and her active mind careering about
the house, seeking o