ong and lie down awhile. You look so white
and tired--no wonder, after all you've been through to-day."

If Mary had been at the boarding-house she would have thrown herself
down on the bed and gone without her supper. She felt so exhausted and
collapsed. But under the circumstances she felt that the obligations of
a guest required her to keep going. The evening meal was always somewhat
of a formal affair here, but she decided not to dress for it as usual.
Mr. Blythe's illness would change everything in that regard. She was so
tired she would just bathe her face and brush her hair while she still
had energy enough to move, and then would stretch out in the big
lounging chair in the firelight, and be ready for Mrs. Blythe any time
she might happen to come in. It took only a few moments to do all this,
and just as she finished, Mrs. Blythe came in with a cup of hot tea.

"Drink it and don't say a word until you have finished," she ordered.

Mary obeyed the first part, sipping the tea slowly as she lay back
luxuriously in the big chair, but she couldn't help commenting on the
strange, strange day that had brought so many unexpected things to
pass.

"Isn't it a blessed good thing," she exclaimed, "that we can't know when
we get up in the morning all that the day has in store for us? You'd
have been nearly crazy if you'd known all day that Mr. Blythe was going
to have that stroke of paralysis, and I'd simply have gone up in the air
if I had dreamed that I had to take your place on the programme. Nothing
could have happened that would have surprised me more."

But even while she spoke a still greater surprise was in store for her.
Both had heard the doorbell ring a moment before, but neither had paid
any attention to it. Now the maid came in with a message for Mary.

"A gentleman in the library to see you, Miss Ware. He wouldn't give his
name. He just said to tell you that he was an old friend passing through
town, and that he couldn't go till he had seen you."

"Who can it be?" exclaimed Mary, pulling herself slowly up from the
sleepy hollow chair, much puzzled. "If it's an old friend, it must be
some one from Lloydsboro Valley. Everybody else is too far away to drop
in like that. But why didn't he send up his card, I wonder?"

"Probably because he wants to surprise you," answered Mrs. Blythe. "If
it's any one you'd care to invite to dinner, feel perfectly free to do
so."

With a word of thanks and a hasty peep into