et Bean; "he's took considerable worse." She
nodded her head angrily at Madelon.

"Is his cough worse?"

"He can scarcely sit up," said Margaret Bean, with severe emphasis.
She rose up stiffly, as if she had but one joint, so girt about was
she. "If a woman's going to marry a man, I calculate it's her place
to go to him when he's sick and wants her," she added.

"Is his cough worse?"

"Ain't his cough bad all the time? Well, I'm going. If folks 'ain't
got any feelings, they 'ain't. I've got to make some porridge for
him."

Madelon opened the door for her. "I'll come over after supper," said
she; "you can tell him so."

After supper Madelon went over to Lot's in the early twilight. The
tinkles and gurgles and plashes of water came mysteriously from all
sides through the dusk. The hill-sides were flowing with shallow
cascades, and the woods were threaded with brooks. The wind blew
strongly as ever from the south; it had lost the warmth of the sun,
but was still soft. The earth was full of a strange commotion and
stir--of disorder changing into order, as if creation had come again.
It might have been the very birthnight of the spring. Madelon, as she
hurried along, felt that memory of old, joyous anticipation which
enhances melancholy when the chance of realization is over. The
spring might come, radiant as ever, with its fulfilment of love for
flowers and birds and all living things, but the spring would never
come in its full meaning, with its old prophecies, for her again.

Just before she reached Lot's home, Burr passed her swiftly with a
muttered "good-evening." He was on his way to Dorothy Fair's.

"Good-evening," Madelon returned, quite clearly.

She found Lot sitting up, but she could see that he looked worse than
usual. He was paler, and there was an odd, nervous contraction about
his whole face, as if a frown of anxiety and perplexity had extended.

He held out his hand, but she took no notice of it.

"I have come," said she; "what is it?"

"Won't you shake hands, Madelon?"

Madelon held out her hand, with her face averted, but Lot did not
take it, after all.

"My hand is too cold," he muttered; "never mind--" He continued to
look at her, and the anxious lines on his face deepened.

"Are you feeling worse than usual?" Madelon asked; and a little
kindness came into her voice, for Lot Gordon looked again like a sick
child who had lost his way in the world.

Lot shook his head, with his wistf