eir easy greeting of
her. "Why, what do you mean?" And just then the clock struck seven,
deliberately.

"Why--why, I thought--then you did not forget--" she began, uncertainly.

"There is nothing like the open air for sleeping, when one is ready for
it," said Hester. "Did you not notice the cover I threw over you? You
must have gone off before it grew dark, quite."

"Oh, no, because I was with--" then she stopped abruptly. For it
dawned on her that the other woman must have been a dream, since she
perceived that she was unwilling to ask about her, so faintly did that
conversation recall itself to her, so uncertain her memory proved as to
how that other came and went, or when.

"It was a dream, of course," she thought, and said, a shade resentful
still,

"I never slept--that way--before."

"It seems to suit you," said Ann briskly, "for you have never left your
room till now."

Then it dawned on her suddenly.

"Why, I am well!" she said.

"Very nearly, I think," Hester answered her. "Will you have your
breakfast under the tree, while sister picks the berries?"

To this she agreed gladly and found herself, still wondering at the new
strength that filled her, under a pear-tree, in a pleasant patch of
shadow, eating with relish from Hester's morning tray. Ann knelt not
far from her in the sun, not too hot at this hour for a hardy worker,
and soon her low humming rose like a bee's note from under her broad
hat.

"The wash is all ready for you, sister, on the landing," she called.
"Tell mother her new towels bleached to a marvel: they are on the
currant-bushes now. I'll wet them down and iron them off while the
syrup is cooking, I think--I know she's anxious to handle them."

"Are you always busy, Miss Ann?" her guest inquired, for Ann's fingers
never stopped even while she looked toward the house-door.

"Always in the morning, of course," she answered, directly. "Every one
must be, if things are to get done."

"But in the afternoon you are ironing, and Miss Hester tells me you do
a great deal in the garden. When do you rest?"

"In my bed," said Ann briefly.

She was less sweetly grave than her sister, and it was easy to see that
her tongue was sharper. She would not have been so soothing to an
invalid, but the woman under the pear-tree had her nerves better in
hand by now, and felt, somehow, upon her mettle to prove to this broad,
curt Ann that there were tasks in the world beyond her sturdy
r