seemed brushed from the hazel eyes--the blinds were raised and angry
fear peeped out.

"You wouldn't dare!" The words were a mere breath. Then meeting the
girl's look of blank amazement she caught herself from the brink of
hysteria and added more calmly, "What an impossible suggestion! I need
no second opinion upon the remedy which your father prescribed for me
and I shall take none. As for the journey, I shall ask your advice when
I wish it. At present I am capable of managing my own affairs. I shall
come and go as I like."

The would-be firm voice wavered wrathed badly toward the end of this
defiance, but the widely opened eyes were still shining and as she
turned to enter the house, Esther caught a look in them, a gleam of
something very like hate.

"So that is what comes of asking," said Esther sombrely.

She did not follow her step-mother into the house but remained for a
while on the veranda, thinking. It was clearly useless to reopen the
subject of the prescription. For some reason Mrs. Coombe regarded it as
a fetish. She would not trust it to Taylor's. She would not allow a
doctor to see it; there remained only the suggestion of Dr. Callandar
that it be inspected without her consent. Esther knew where the
prescription was kept, but--

Women are supposed, by men, to have a defective sense of loyalty and it
is a belief fairly well established, also among men, that there is a
fundamental difference in the attitude of the sexes to that high thing
called honour. Esther was both loyal and honourable. To deceive her
step-mother, however good the motive, could not but be horrible to her
and just now, being angry with a very young and healthy anger, she was
less willing than ever to lose her own self-respect in the service of
Mary Coombe.

"I won't!" said Esther firmly, and went in to prepare Aunt Amy's supper.

"I don't feel like I ought to be eating upstairs this way," fussed the
invalid as Esther came in with the tray. "I am so much better. That
medicine the doctor gave me helped me right away. He must be a very
smart man, Esther."

"It looks like it, Auntie."

"I don't doubt I'll be around to-morrow just like he said. So I don't
want you staying home from school. That girl you get to take your place
is kind of cross with the children, isn't she?"

"She is strict."

"Well, don't get her. I don't like to think about the children being
scared out of their lives on my account. So I'll just get up as usual