t. Say, Emmy, have you
ever had anybody come in and give your ma a good hard--_blowing up_?"

The blood rushed to Emmy's face; her eyes sank. She answered, in a
confused tone: "Aunt Lida Glenn was over yesterday. I don't know what
she said to mother, but mother--mother told me the one thing she wanted
on earth was to have me--send Albert away and have everything ended
between us, for she never was so insulted in her life as she had been by
Albert's mother."

"Albert's mother ain't Albert; though I don't blame her, Emmy, and Mrs.
Glenn is a awful nice woman. But it ain't fair to hold Albert for her
opinions, right or wrong. As I said, she ain't Albert, nor Albert ain't
her."

"So I told mother," said Emmy. "I did hate to be disrespectful to her,
but I told her so; and she answered that Mrs. Glenn said Albert thought
so too. Then when I tried to question her she was in so much pain and
groaned so I hadn't the heart to bother her. She let me put hot cloths
on her, and give her a Turkish bath over the alcohol-lamp; and I hoped
she'd let me make her some water gruel, but she wouldn't touch a
spoonful. Mrs. Conner, you don't suppose she--she will keep it up much
longer?" Emmy's eyes dilated with an unspoken fear as she lifted them to
the kind woman before her. "She said she felt herself growing weaker
this morning. I--I told her I wouldn't go to the picnic with Bert, if
she would only eat something. But she said that she couldn't eat
anything. One time--one time she went three days. I didn't let the
neighbors know; but I was 'most crazy, and poor little Jinny cried. She
isn't one to cry, either."

"No," Mrs. Conner agreed, glancing at Jinny who was chattering volubly
with the girl in the phaeton--"no, I'd say she'd be more likely to be
sassy."

"I'm afraid she was that, too," suggested Emmy, with a dim smile, "but
at last she got scared. It was some new books Bert brought, got mother
out of that time; she was so anxious to read them."

"Yes, I know your ma's a great reader. Always was. She told me she
fairly revelled in stories of high life and detective stories. She said
she'd read every one of The Duchess's books--I guess 'twas a hundred.
And she said many and many a night she'd set up in bed reading half the
night. 'It's so resting,' she says, 'to read 'bout murders and how they
are tracked down.' It took up her mind from her sorrers, she says. And
she told me she didn't know how she'd ever lived through losing your