don, not, I fancied,
without a faint hint of relief in her voice. "Now carry me up-stairs to
the first room on the right."

Half hidden by his burden, Paul rolled wildly inquiring eyes at me; but
he obediently staggered up the broad old staircase, and waiting till I
had opened the first door to the right, stepped into the big bedroom.

"Put me down on the bed, and open them shutters," Mrs. Purdon commanded.

She still marshaled her forces with no lack of decision, but with a
fainting voice which made me run over to her quickly as Paul laid her
down on the four-poster. Her eyes were still indomitable, but her mouth
hung open slackly and her color was startling. "Oh, Paul, quick! quick!
Haven't you your flask with you?"

Mrs. Purdon informed me in a barely audible whisper, "In the corner
cupboard at the head of the stairs," and I flew down the hallway. I
returned with a bottle, evidently of great age. There was only a little
brandy in the bottom, but it whipped up a faint color into the sick
woman's lips.

As I was bending over her and Paul was thrusting open the shutters,
letting in a flood of sunshine and flecky leaf-shadows, a firm, rapid
step came down the hall, and a vigorous woman, with a tanned face and a
clean, faded gingham dress, stopped short in the doorway with an
expression of stupefaction.

Mrs. Purdon put me on one side, and although she was physically
incapable of moving her body by a hair's breadth, she gave the effect of
having risen to meet the newcomer. "Well, Emma, here I am," she said in
a queer voice, with involuntary quavers in it. As she went on she had it
more under control, although in the course of her extraordinarily
succinct speech it broke and failed her occasionally. When it did, she
drew in her breath with an audible, painful effort, struggling forward
steadily in what she had to say. "You see, Emma, it's this way: My
'Niram and your Ev'leen Ann have been keeping company--ever since they
went to school together--you know that 's well as I do, for all we let
on we didn't, only I didn't know till just now how hard they took it.
They can't get married because 'Niram can't keep even, let alone get
ahead any, because I cost so much bein' sick, and the doctor says I may
live for years this way, same's Aunt Hettie did. An' 'Niram is
thirty-one, an' Ev'leen Ann is twenty-eight, an' they've had 'bout's
much waitin' as is good for folks that set such store by each other.
I've thought of every