who had brought up
Dwight--"made him what he was," he often complacently accused her. It
was a note on a postal card--she had often written a few lines on a
postal card to say that she had sent the maple sugar, or could Ina get
her some samples. Now she wrote a few lines on a postal card to say that
she was going to die with cancer. Could Dwight and Ina come to her while
she was still able to visit? If he was not too busy....

Nobody saw the pity and the terror of that postal card. They stuck it up
by the kitchen clock to read over from time to time, and before they
left, Dwight lifted the griddle of the cooking-stove and burned the
postal card.

And before they left Lulu said: "Dwight--you can't tell how long you'll
be gone?"

"Of course not. How should I tell?"

"No. And that letter might come while you're away."

"Conceivably. Letters do come while a man's away!"

"Dwight--I thought if you wouldn't mind if I opened it--"

"Opened it?"

"Yes. You see, it'll be about me mostly--"

"I should have said that it'll be about my brother mostly."

"But you know what I mean. You wouldn't mind if I did open it?"

"But you say you know what'll be in it."

"So I did know--till you--I've got to see that letter, Dwight."

"And so you shall. But not till I show it to you. My dear Lulu, you know
how I hate having my mail interfered with."

She might have said: "Small souls always make a point of that." She said
nothing. She watched them set off, and kept her mind on Ina's thousand
injunctions.

"Don't let Di see much of Bobby Larkin. And, Lulu--if it occurs to her
to have Mr. Cornish come up to sing, of course you ask him. You might
ask him to supper. And don't let mother overdo. And, Lulu, now do watch
Monona's handkerchief--the child will never take a clean one if I'm not
here to tell her...."

She breathed injunctions to the very step of the 'bus.

In the 'bus Dwight leaned forward:

"See that you play post-office squarely, Lulu!" he called, and threw
back his head and lifted his eyebrows.

In the train he turned tragic eyes to his wife.

"Ina," he said. "It's _ma_. And she's going to die. It can't be...."

Ina said: "But you're going to help her, Dwight, just being there with
her."

It was true that the mere presence of the man would bring a kind of
fresh life to that worn frame. Tact and wisdom and love would speak
through him and minister.

Toward the end of their week's absence the letter from Ni