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“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 pa but for Sherlock Holmes. If I was you I’d jest try to stir her up with these books. I’ll fetch ’em to her. I read the one of Ouida’s and it’s real good–and, come to think of it, brimful of eating. Who knows but it’ll git her to wanting to eat herself. Why, when I think what kind of cook she was, it don’t seem possible! But now don’t you worry, Emmy; she’ll come all right and she’ll come all right ’bout Mrs. Glenn, good friends as they’ve always been. Why, she always has liked Lida Glenn better than all her other friends together! She’ll have to make up. Don’t you fret a bit.” She said the words in a hearty voice, and she strode vigorously across the grass to the piazza and presented her package with a breezy cheer. “Here’s two new books by Ouida, and one by Bertha M. Clay, and two by Maria Corelly, Mrs. Darter; and Emmy’ll be ready to read them to you soon.”

Mrs. Darter had a delicate pale face, much like Emmy’s in features, but etched with tiny wrinkles. The corners of her mouth dropped, and there was a habitual frown of pain on her pretty forehead. She did not look ungentle, only obstinate.

“Thank you,” she murmured. Then she sighed.

Mrs. Conner opened her mouth, and shut it again, compressing the lips with unnecessary firmness.

Mrs. Darter laid her head back on her chair. She closed her eyes. A plaintive, sibilant noise hissed through her parted lips.

“Well, I’m real sorry you’re sick,” said Mrs. Connor, her voice again full of good-nature. “I guess what you need is a little nourishing food–“