you more comfortable."

She spoke clearly and yet not loudly, knowing that a sick person
hates whispering.

The afternoon sunlight streamed into the room, revealing a clean
though most sparsely furnished bedroom. A rag rug on the floor, two
chairs, a washstand and mirror and the bed were the only articles of
furniture.

Betty, after one swift glance, turned toward the occupant of the bed.
She saw a woman apparently about sixty years old, with mild blue
eyes, now glazed by fever, and tangled gray hair. As Betty watched
her a terrible fit of coughing shook her.

"You must have a doctor!" said Betty decidedly, wondering what there
was about the woman that seemed familiar. "How long have you been
like this? Have you been alone? How hard it must have been for you!"

She put out her hand to smooth the bedclothes, and the sick woman
grasped it, her own hot with fever, till Betty almost cried out.

"The stock!" she gasped. "I took 'em water till I couldn't get out of
bed. How long ago was that? They will die tied up!"

"I fed and watered them," Betty soothed her. "They're all right.
Don't worry another minute. I'll make you tidy and get you something
to eat and then I'm going for a doctor."

What was there about the woman--Betty stared at her, frowning in an
effort to recollect where she had seen her before. If Bob were only
here to help her--Bob! Why, the sick woman before her was the living
image of Bob Henderson!

"The Saunders place!" Betty clapped her hand to her mouth, anxious
not to excite her patient. "Why, of course, this is the farm. And she
must be one of Bob's aunts!"

As if in answer to her question, the sick woman half rose in bed.

"Charity!" she stammered, her hands pressed to her aching head.
"Charity! She was sick first."

She pointed to an adjoining room and Betty crossed the floor feeling
that she was walking in a dream and likely to wake up any minute.

The communicating room was shrouded in darkness like the other, and
when Betty had raised the shades she found it furnished as another
bedroom. Evidently the old sisters had chosen to live entirely on the
first floor of the house.

The woman in the square iron bed looked startlingly like Bob, too,
but, unlike her sister, her eyes were dark. She lay quietly, her
cheeks scarlet and her hands nervously picking at the counterpane.
When she saw Betty she struggled to a sitting posture and tried to
talk. It was pitiable to watch her efforts for