in a low voice. She knew that she
was telling them the doctor's decision. Then Mom Beck tapped at the door
to ask if she would see the girls awhile, but she sent her away with a
mournful shake of the head. She was too miserable even to speak.

The low murmur of voices went on for some time. It grew loud enough for
her to distinguish the words when the girls came out into the hall again
to take their departure. Lloyd raised herself on her elbow to listen.
Kitty was telling something that had happened that afternoon at the
candy-pull from which they were just returning. A wan smile flitted
across Lloyd's face, in sympathy with the merry laugh that floated up
the stairs. But it faded the next instant as she whispered, bitterly:
"That's the way it will always be. They will go on having good times
without me, and they'll get so they'll nevah even miss me. I'll be left
out of everything. There's nothing left to look forward to any moah. Oh,
it's all so dah'k and gloomy--I know now how Ederyn felt, for I'm just
like he was, walled up in a dreadful Dungeon of Disappointment."

The fancy pleased her so that she went on making herself miserable with
it long after the door closed behind Kitty and Gay. Over and over she
pictured Warwick Hall, which just then seemed the most desirable place
in all the world. She could see the shining river, as she had watched it
so many times from her window, flowing past the stately terraces between
its willow-fringed banks. She could hear the breezy summons of the
hunter's horn, calling the girls to rambles over the wooded hills or
through the quaint old garden. She could see the sun streaming into the
south windows of the English room, with the class gathered around Miss
Chilton, eager and interested. All the dear, delightful round of
inspiring work and play would go on day after day for the others, but it
would go on without her. Henceforth she would be left out of everything
pleasant and worth while.

She would not go down to dinner. She could not take such a puffed,
tear-swollen face to the table to make everybody else unhappy, and she
couldn't throw off her despondent mood. Maybe in a few days, she
thought, she might be able to hide her feelings sufficiently to appear
in public, but it would always be with a secret sorrow gnawing at her
heart. Just now she shrank from sympathy, and she didn't want any one to
cheer her up. It did not seem possible that she could ever smile again,
and she was