im. You can get William to
come in and help." Charlotte had come back from the door and reported
to Barney, and he had turned his face away with a quivering sigh.

"Why, what is the matter? Don't you want to be got up?" asked
Charlotte.

"Yes," said Barney, miserably.

"What is the matter?" Charlotte said, bending over him. "Don't you
feel well enough?"

Barney gave her a pitiful, shamed look like a child. "You'll go,
then," he half sobbed.

Charlotte turned away quickly. "I shall not go as long as you need
me, Barney," she said, with a patient dignity.

Barney did not dream against what odds Charlotte had stayed with him.
Her mother had come repeatedly, and expostulated with her out in the
entry when she went away.

"It ain't fit for you to stay here, as if you was married to him,
when you ain't, and ain't ever goin' to be, as near as I can make
out," she said. "William can get that woman over to the North Village
now, or I can come, or your aunt Hannah would come for a while, till
Rebecca gets well enough to see to him a little. She was sayin'
yesterday that it wa'n't fit for you to stay here."

"I'm here, and I'm going to stay here till he's better than he is
now," said Charlotte.

"Folks will talk."

"I can't help it if they do. I'm doing what I think is right."

"It ain't fit for an unmarried woman like you to be takin' care of
him," said her mother, and a sudden blush flamed over her old face.

Charlotte did not blush at all. "William comes in every day," she
said, simply.

"I think he could get along a while now with what William does an'
what we could cook an' bring in," pleaded her mother. "I'd come over
every day an' set a while; I'd jest as lieves as not. If you'd only
come home, Charlotte. Your father didn't mean anythin' when he said
you shouldn't. He asked me jest this mornin' when you was comin'."

"I ain't coming till he's well enough so he don't need me," said
Charlotte. "There's no use talking, mother. I must go back now; he'll
wonder what we're talking about;" and she shut the door gently upon
her mother, still talking.

Her aunt Hannah came, and her aunt Sylvia, quaking with gentle fears.
She even had to listen to remonstrances from William Berry, honestly
grateful as he was for her care of his brother-in-law.

"I ain't quite sure that it's right for you to stay here, Charlotte,"
he said, looking away from her uncomfortably. "Rebecca says--'Hadn't
you better let me go for that w