to talk on the subject of other Willowfield people, and the Latimers
among them. In the rare, brief letters Margery wrote to her _protegee_,
she did not say she was ill. Once she said her brother Lucien had quite
suddenly come to Boston to see how she was, because her mother imagined
she must have taken cold.

She had been in Boston about a year then. One afternoon Susan was in her
room, standing by her bed forlornly, and, in a vacant, reasonless mood,
turning over the few coarse little garments she had been able to prepare
for her child--a few common little shirts and nightgowns and gray
flannels--no more. She heard someone at the door. The handle turned and
the door opened as if the person who came in had forgotten the ceremony
of knocking. Susan laid down on the bed the ugly little night-dress she
had been looking at; it lay there stiff with its coarseness, its short
arms stretched out. She turned about and faced Margery Latimer, who had
crossed the threshold and stood before her.

Susan uttered a low, frightened cry before she could speak a word.

The girl looked like a ghost. It was a ghost Susan thought of this time,
and not a flower. The pure little face was white and drawn, the features
were sharpened, the harebell-coloured eyes had almost a look of wildness;
it was as if they had been looking at something frightening for a long
time, until they could not lose the habit of expressing fear.

"Susan," she said, in a strange, uncertain voice, "you didn't expect to
see me."

Susan ran to her.

"No, no," she said, "I didn't know you was here. I thought you was in
Boston. What's the matter? Oh, Lawsy, Margery, what's happened to make
you look like this?"

"Nobody knows," answered Margery. "They say it's the cold. They are
frightened about me. I'm come to say good-bye to you, Susan."

She sank into a chair and sat there, panting a little.

"Lucien's going to take me to Europe," she said, her voice all at once
seeming to sound monotonous, as if she was reciting a lesson
mechanically. "I always wanted to go there--to visit the picture
galleries and study. They think the climate will be good for me. I've
been coughing in the mornings--and I can't eat."

"Do they think you might be going into--a consumption?" Susan faltered.

"Mother's frightened," said Margery. "She and the doctor don't know what
to think. Lucien's going to take me to Europe. It's expensive, but--but
he has managed to get the money. He sold