ate, and she wept a little. Many a
happiness comes to its object with outriders of sorrows to others.

Poor Amanda bemoaned herself over the changes that might come to her
little home, and planned nervously her manner of living with Lois
during the next week. Amanda had lived entirely alone for over twenty
years; this admitting another to her own territory seemed as grave a
matter to her as the admission of foreigners did to Japan. Indeed,
all her kind were in a certain way foreigners to Amanda; and she was
shy of them, she had so withdrawn herself by her solitary life, for
solitariness is the farthest country of them all.

Amanda did not sleep much, and it was very early in the morning--she
was standing before the kitchen looking-glass, twisting the rosettes
of her front hair--when Mrs. Field came in to say good-by. Mrs. Field
was gaunt and erect in her straight black clothes. She had her black
veil tied over her bonnet to protect it from dust, and the black
frame around her strong-featured face gave her a rigid, relentless
look, like a female Jesuit. Lois came faltering behind her mother.
She had a bewildered air, and she looked from her mother to Amanda
with appealing significance, but she did not speak.

"Well, I've come to say good-by," said Mrs. Field.

Amanda had one side of her front hair between her lips while she
twisted the other; she took it out. "Good-by, Mis' Field," she said.
"I'll do the best I can for Lois. How soon do you s'pose you'll be
back?"

"It's accordin' to how I get along. I've been tellin' Lois she ain't
goin' to school to-day. She's afraid Mr. Starr will put Ida in if she
don't; but there ain't no need of her worryin'; mebbe a way will be
opened. I want you to lookout she don't go. There ain't no need of
it."

"I'll do the best I can," said Amanda, with a doubtful glance at
Lois.

Lois said nothing, but her pale little mouth contracted obstinately.
She and Amanda followed her mother to the door. The departing woman
said good-by, and went down the steps over the terraces. She never
looked back. She went on out the gate, and turned into the long road.
She had a mile walk to the railroad station.

Amanda and Lois went back into the sitting-room.

"When did she tell you she was going?" Lois asked suddenly.

"Last night."

"She didn't tell me till this morning."

Lois held her head high, but her eyes were surprised and pitiful, and
the corners of her mouth drooped. She faced about