ey were to be driven ceremoniously home, with the neighbors looking
out of their windows to see them go by.

All the family talked to her at once, except Thor,--impressive in new
trousers,--who was gravely silent and who refused to sit on Thea's lap.
One of the first things Anna told her was that Maggie Evans, the girl
who used to cough in prayer meeting, died yesterday, and had made a
request that Thea sing at her funeral.

Thea's smile froze. "I'm not going to sing at all this summer, except my
exercises. Bowers says I taxed my voice last winter, singing at funerals
so much. If I begin the first day after I get home, there'll be no end
to it. You can tell them I caught cold on the train, or something."

Thea saw Anna glance at their mother. Thea remembered having seen that
look on Anna's face often before, but she had never thought anything
about it because she was used to it. Now she realized that the look was
distinctly spiteful, even vindictive. She suddenly realized that Anna
had always disliked her.

Mrs. Kronborg seemed to notice nothing, and changed the trend of the
conversation, telling Thea that Dr. Archie and Mr. Upping, the jeweler,
were both coming in to see her that evening, and that she had asked
Spanish Johnny to come, because he had behaved well all winter and ought
to be encouraged.

The next morning Thea wakened early in her own room up under the eaves
and lay watching the sunlight shine on the roses of her wall-paper. She
wondered whether she would ever like a plastered room as well as this
one lined with scantlings. It was snug and tight, like the cabin of a
little boat. Her bed faced the window and stood against the wall, under
the slant of the ceiling. When she went away she could just touch the
ceiling with the tips of her fingers; now she could touch it with the
palm of her hand. It was so little that it was like a sunny cave, with
roses running all over the roof. Through the low window, as she lay
there, she could watch people going by on the farther side of the
street; men, going downtown to open their stores. Thor was over there,
rattling his express wagon along the sidewalk. Tillie had put a bunch of
French pinks in a tumbler of water on her dresser, and they gave out a
pleasant perfume. The blue jays were fighting and screeching in the
cottonwood tree outside her window, as they always did, and she could
hear the old Baptist deacon across the street calling his chickens, as
she had he