"She has been
ailing all winter, and now she's fast to her bed. Mrs. Murphy says she
believes the woman is dying, but nobody dares tell her so. She won't
give in she's sick, nor take medicine. And there's nobody to wait on her
except that simple creature, Maggie Peterson."

"I wonder if I ought to go and see her," said Mr. Leonard uneasily.

"What use would it be to bother yourself? You know she wouldn't see
you--she'd shut the door in your face like she did before. She's an
awful wicked woman--but it's kind of terrible to think of her lying
there sick, with no responsible person to tend her."

"Naomi Clark is a bad woman and she lived a life of shame, but I like
her, for all that," remarked Felix, in the grave, meditative tone in
which he occasionally said rather startling things.

Mr. Leonard looked somewhat reproachfully at Janet Andrews, as if to ask
her why Felix should have attained to this dubious knowledge of good
and evil under her care; and Janet shot a dour look back which, being
interpreted, meant that if Felix went to the district school she could
not and would not be held responsible if he learned more there than
arithmetic and Latin.

"What do you know of Naomi Clark to like or dislike?" she asked
curiously. "Did you ever see her?"

"Oh, yes," Felix replied, addressing himself to his cherry preserve with
considerable gusto. "I was down at Spruce Cove one night last summer
when a big thunderstorm came up. I went to Naomi's house for shelter.
The door was open, so I walked right in, because nobody answered my
knock. Naomi Clark was at the window, watching the cloud coming up over
the sea. She just looked at me once, but didn't say anything, and then
went on watching the cloud. I didn't like to sit down because she hadn't
asked me to, so I went to the window by her and watched it, too. It was
a dreadful sight--the cloud was so black and the water so green, and
there was such a strange light between the cloud and the water; yet
there was something splendid in it, too. Part of the time I watched the
storm, and the other part I watched Naomi's face. It was dreadful to
see, like the storm, and yet I liked to see it.

"After the thunder was over it rained a while longer, and Naomi sat down
and talked to me. She asked me who I was, and when I told her she asked
me to play something for her on her violin,"--Felix shot a deprecating
glance at Mr. Leonard--"because, she said, she'd heard I was a great
hand at