er best to
make her tasks indefinitely last. She had nearly finished when Di burst
in.

"Aunt Lulu, Aunt Lulu!" she cried. "Come in there--come. I can't stand
it. What am I going to do?"

"Di, dear," said Lulu. "Tell your mother--you must tell her."

"She'll cry," Di sobbed. "Then she'll tell papa--and he'll never stop
talking about it. I know him--every day he'll keep it going. After he
scolds me it'll be a joke for months. I'll die--I'll die, Aunt Lulu."

Ina's voice sounded in the kitchen. "What are you two whispering about?
I declare, mamma's hurt, Di, at the way you're acting...."

"Let's go out on the porch," said Lulu, and when Di would have escaped,
Ina drew her with them, and handled the situation in the only way that
she knew how to handle it, by complaining: Well, but what in this
world....

Lulu threw a white shawl about her blue cotton dress.

"A bridal robe," said Dwight. "How's that, Lulu--what are _you_ wearing
a bridal robe for--eh?"

She smiled dutifully. There was no need to make him angry, she
reflected, before she must. He had not yet gone into the parlour--had
not yet asked for his mail.

It was a warm dusk, moonless, windless. The sounds of the village
street came in--laughter, a touch at a piano, a chiming clock. Bights
starred and quickened in the blurred houses. Footsteps echoed on the
board walks. The gate opened. The gloom yielded up Cornish.

Lulu was inordinately glad to see him. To have the strain of the time
broken by him was like hearing, on a lonely whiter wakening, the clock
strike reassuring dawn.

"Lulu," said Dwight low, "your dress. Do go!"

Lulu laughed. "The bridal shawl takes off the curse," she said.

Cornish, in his gentle way, asked about the journey, about the sick
woman--and Dwight talked of her again, and this time his voice broke. Di
was curiously silent. When Cornish addressed her, she replied simply and
directly--the rarest of Di's manners, hi fact not Di's manner at all.
Lulu spoke not at all--it was enough to have this respite.

After a little the gate opened again. It was Bobby. In the besetting
fear that he was leaving Di to face something alone, Bobby had arrived.

And now Di's spirits rose. To her his presence meant repentance,
recapitulation. Her laugh rang out, her replies came archly. But Bobby
was plainly not playing up. Bobby was, in fact, hardly less than glum.
It was Dwight, the irrepressible fellow, who kept the talk going. And it
was no