verything has gone catawampus with me this week. I
spoiled the bread, as you know too well--and I scorched the doctor's
best shirt bosom--and I broke your big platter. And now, on the top of
all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and
wants me to go and stay with her for a spell."

"Oh, I'm very sorry--sorry that your sister has met with such an
accident, I mean," exclaimed Anne.

"Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear. That sounds as if
it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns
wrote it. And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the
sparks fly upward. As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her.
None of our family ever broke their legs before. But whatever she has
done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and
wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear."

"Of course, Susan, of course. I can get someone to help me while you
are gone."

"If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear, Matilda's leg to the
contrary notwithstanding. I will not have you worried, and that
blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs."

"Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan. I can get a girl from
the cove, who will do for a time."

"Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?"
exclaimed Leslie. "Do! I'd love to--and it would be an act of charity
on your part. I'm so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
house. There's so little to do--and at night I'm worse than
lonely--I'm frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors. There was
a tramp around two days ago."

Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed as an inmate of
the little house of dreams. Miss Cornelia warmly approved of the
arrangement.

"It seems Providential," she told Anne in confidence. "I'm sorry for
Matilda Clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn't have
happened at a better time. Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in
Four Winds, and those old cats up at the Glen won't get the chance to
meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and Owen going
to see her. They are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn't
put on mourning. I said to one of them, 'If you mean she should put on
mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection
than his funeral; and if it's Dick you mean, I confess _I_ can't see
the propriety