her sister's house, and with a wild exultation flung
the sheet far out and dropped on her knees beside the open window.

She moaned and cried wildly as she waved the sheet. The note of a scared
child was in her voice.

"Oh, Serry, come quick! Oh, I _need_ you, Serry! I didn't mean to be
mean; I want to see you _so_! Oh, dear, oh, dear! Oh, Serry, come
quick!"

Then space and the world slipped away, and she knew nothing of time
again until she heard the anxious voice of Sarah below.

"Emmy, where _are_ you, Emmy?"

"Here I be, Serry."

With swift, heavy tread Sarah hurried up the stairs, and the dear old
face shone upon her again; those kind gray eyes full of anxiety and of
love.

Emma looked up like a child entreating to be lifted. Her look so
pitifully eager went to the younger sister's maternal heart.

"You poor, dear soul! Why didn't you send for me before?"

"Oh, Serry, don't leave me again, will you?"

When Mrs. Harkey returned she found Sarah sitting by Emma's side in the
bed-chamber. Sarah looked at her with all the grimness her jolly fat
face could express.

"You ain't needed _here_," she said coldly. "If you want to do anything,
find a man and send him for the Doctor--quick. If she dies you'll be her
murderer."

Mrs. Harkey was subdued by the bitterness of accusation in Sarah's face
as well as by Emma's condition. She hurried down the Coolly and sent a
boy wildly galloping toward the town. Then she went home and sat down by
her own hearthstone feeling deeply injured.

When the Doctor came he found a poor little boy baby crying in Sarah's
arms. It was Emma's seventh child, but the ever sufficing mother-love
looked from her eyes undimmed, limitless as the air.

"Will it live, Doctor? It's so little," she said, with a sigh.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so!" said the Doctor, as if its living were not
entirely a blessing to itself or others. "Yes, I've seen lots of lusty
children begin life like that. But," he said to Sarah at the door, "she
needs better care than the babe!"

"She'll git it," said Sarah, with deep solemnity, "if I have to move
over here--and live."

A FAIR EXILE

The train was ambling across the hot, russet plain. The wind, strong and
warm and dry, sweeping up from the south, carried with it the subtle
odor of September grass and gathered harvests. Out of the unfenced roads
the dust arose in long lines, like smoke from some hidden burning which
the riven earth revealed. The f