r head and a shawl over her knees.
Her stepmother was busy at the table with her Saturday baking; Sammy
was giving the porch its Saturday cleaning, and the other children, too
little to work, were playing outdoors; even the baby, bundled up in its
cart, was out on the grass-plot.

"Do you hear me, Tillie? Whose book was that there?"

Tillie's head hung low and her very lips were white. She did not answer.

"You 're goin' to act stubborn to ME!" her father incredulously
exclaimed, and the woman at the table turned and stared in dull
amazement at this unheard-of defiance of the head of the family.
"Tillie!" he grasped her roughly by the arm and shook her. "Answer to
me!"

Tillie's chest rose and fell tumultuously. Bat she kept her eyes
downcast and her lips closed.

"Fur why don't you want to tell, then?"

"I--can't, pop!"

"Can't! If you wasn't sick I 'd soon learn you if you can't! Now you
might as well tell me right aways, fur I'll make you tell me SOME time!"

Tillie's lips quivered and the tears rolled slowly over her white
cheeks.

"Fur why did you say it was Elviny?"

"She was the only person I thought to say."

"But fur why didn't you say the person it WAS? Answer to me!" he
commanded.

Tillie curved her arm over her face and sobbed. She was still too weak
from her fever to bear the strain of this unequal contest of wills.

"Well," concluded her father, his anger baffled and impotent before the
child's weakness, "I won't bother you with it no more NOW. But you just
wait till you 're well oncet! We'll see then if you'll tell me what I
ast you or no!"

"Here's the Doc," announced Mrs. Getz, as the sound of wheels was heard
outside the gate.

"Well," her husband said indignantly as he rose and went to the door,
"I just wonder what he's got to say fur hisself, lyin' to me like what
he done!"

"Hello, Jake!" was the doctor's breezy greeting as he walked into the
kitchen, followed by a brood of curious little Getzes, to whom the
doctor's daily visits were an exciting episode. "Howdy-do, missus," he
briskly addressed the mother of the brood, pushing his hat to the back
of his head in lieu of raising it. "And how's the patient?" he inquired
with a suddenly professional air and tone. "Some better, heh? HEH? Been
cryin'! What fur?" he demanded, turning to Mr. Getz. "Say, Jake, you
ain't been badgerin' this kid again fur somepin? She'll be havin' a
RElapse if you don't leave her be!"

"It's YOU I'm wa