e,' I wonder?"

Mrs. Lightfoot accepted the rebuke with meekness.

"Had I done so, I should certainly have proved myself to be a fool," she
returned with grim humour, "but since you have fully decided that you
prefer to be miserable, I shall take you with me tomorrow when I go for
Dan."

But on the morrow the old lady did not leave her bed, and the doctor, who
came with his saddlebags from Leicesterburg, glanced her over and ordered
"perfect repose of mind and body" before he drank his julep and rode away.

"Perfect repose, indeed!" scoffed his patient, from behind her curtains,
when the visit was over. "Why, the idiot might as well have ordered me a
mustard plaster. If he thinks there's any 'repose' in being married to Mr.
Lightfoot, I'd be very glad to have him try it for a week."

Betty made no response, for her throat was strained and aching; but in a
moment Mrs. Lightfoot called her to her bedside and patted her upon the
arm.

"We'll go next week, child," she said gently. "When you have been married
as long as I have been, you will know that a week the more or the less of a
man's society makes very little difference in the long run."

And the next week they went. On a ripe October day, when the earth was all
red and gold, the coach was brought out into the drive, and Mrs. Lightfoot
came down, leaning upon Champe and Betty.

The Major was reading his Horace in the library, and though he heard the
new pair of roans pawing on the gravel, he gave no sign of displeasure. His
age had oppressed him in the last few days, and he carried stains, like
spilled wine, on his cheeks. He could not ease his swollen heart by
outbursts of anger, and the sensitiveness of his temper warned off the
sympathy which he was too proud to unbend and seek. So he sat and stared at
the unturned Latin page, and the hand he raised to his throat trembled
slightly in the air.

Outside, Betty, in her most becoming bonnet, with her blue barege shawl
over her soft white gown, wrapped Mrs. Lightfoot in woollen robes, and
fluttered nervously when the old lady remembered that she had left her
spectacles behind.

"I brought the empty case; here it is, my dear," she said, offering it to
the girl. "Surely you don't intend to take me off without my glasses?"

Mitty was sent upstairs on a search for them, and in her absence her
mistress suddenly decided that she needed an extra wrap. "The little white
nuby in my top drawer, Betty--I felt a chill st