its
place before she sat down to see what Richard had written.

Tim knew what he had written, for in his hat was another letter from
Melinda, for his mother, which he had opened, his feet going off into a
kind of double shuffle as he read that Ethelyn had returned. She had
been very cold and proud to him; but he had admired her greatly, and
remembered her with none but kindly feelings. He was a little anxious to
know what Mrs. Markham would say, but as she was in no hurry to open her
letter, and he was in a hurry to tell his mother the good news, he bade
her good-morning, and mounting his horse, galloped away toward home.

"I hope he's told who the critter was that was took sick in the house,"
Mrs. Markham said, as she adjusted her glasses and broke the seal.

Mrs. Markham had never fainted in her life, but she came very near it
that morning, feeling some as she would if the Daisy, dead, so long, had
suddenly walked into the room and taken a seat beside her.

"I am glad for Dick," she said. "I never saw a man change as he has,
pinin' for her. I mean to be good to her, if I can," and Mrs. Markham's
sun-bonnet was bent low over Richard's letter, on which there were
traces of tears when the head was lifted up again. "I must let John
know, I never can stand it till dinner time," she said, and a shrill
blast from the tin horn, used to bring her sons to dinner, went echoing
across the prairie to the lot where John was working.

It was not a single blast, but peal upon peal, a loud, prolonged sound,
which startled John greatly, especially as he knew by the sun that it
could not be twelve o'clock.

"Blows as if somebody was in a fit," he said, as he took long and rapid
strides toward the farmhouse.

His mother met him in the lane, letter in hand, and her face white with
excitement as she said below her breath:

"John, John, oh! John, she's come. She's there at Richard's--sick with
the fever, and crazy; and Richard is so glad. Read what he says."

She did not say who had come, but John knew, and his eyes were dim with
tears as he took the letter from his mother's hand, and read it, walking
beside her to the house.

"I presume they doctor her that silly fashion, with little pills the
size of a small pin head. Melinda is so set in her way. She ought to
have some good French brandy if they want to save her. I'd better go
myself and see to it," Mrs. Markham said, after they had reached the
house, and John, at her request