end, the same thing; while Mrs.
Dane, and a few other sensible ladies, were indignantly denying it, with
what success, persons who deny rash stories, can guess.

"I declare," cried Kat one day in desperation, "I can't bear to go up
stairs. I just dream about how sad she looks, and I can't keep from
crying just to think that she really isn't our sister any more
than--than Susie Darrow or any of the other girls. Oh, Kittie, just
suppose we were ever to find out that we were not sisters, or belonged
to somebody else, or something dreadful!"

Kittie gave a long, expressive shiver, and hugged her "fac-simile" by
way of satisfaction, for such a dreadful thought.

"How often we have wondered where she got her lovely hair and eyes," she
said slowly. "And how many times we fretted because mama watched her so,
and seemed to humor her, where she never did us. I expect we have made
mama unhappy lots of times by acting jealous that way."

"Like as not," answered Kat remorsefully. "It's all dreadful, every bit
of it. I'd give worlds if it had never happened."

They all tried, by every way in their power, to win Ernestine back to
something of her old self; but it seemed impossible. She spent hours and
hours by herself, just sitting with her hands folded, looking out of the
window with no sign of life or interest in her colorless face, and
rarely speaking. Just brooding, brooding, and nursing her grief, until
the doctor said she must go away, take a complete change, and then she
would come back herself again. He accepted the lover-story, as indeed,
most every one did, for surely the general behavior and symptoms were
much the same, and then, besides, what _could_ the reason be if it
wasn't that?

Ernestine was perfectly indifferent about a visit anywhere. She was
selfish in her grief, as in everything else, and took no interest in all
their plans for her, expressing no satisfaction at the decision that
Bea should go with her, and saying that she did not care when or where
they went.

One afternoon, Kittie went up stairs and found her writing something and
crying bitterly over it. She so seldom cried, that Kittie was alarmed,
but Ernestine said it was only because she was nervous; then put her
writing away, and took her old, listless attitude in the chair by the
window.

That night Olive heard something; she was sure that she did, and started
up in bed for a moment to listen, but everything was perfectly still, so
in a moment