eemed not to
be a joke here, rather a solemn reality.

The kitchen door opened and Mrs. Ellis put in her head. To Albert's
astonishment the upper part of the head, beginning just above the brows,
was swathed in a huge bandage. The lower part was a picture of hopeless
misery.

"Has Cap'n Lote come in yet?" inquired the housekeeper, faintly.

"Not yet, Rachel," replied Mrs. Snow. "He'll be here in a minute,
though. Albert's down, so you can begin takin' up the things."

The head disappeared. A sigh of complete wretchedness drifted in as the
door closed. Albert looked at his grandmother in alarm.

"Is she sick?" he faltered.

"Who? Rachel? No, she ain't exactly sick . . . Dear me! Where did I put
that clean napkin?"

The boy stared at the kitchen door. If his grandmother had said the
housekeeper was not exactly dead he might have understood. But to say
she was not exactly sick--

"But--but what makes her look so?" he stammered. "And--and what's she
got that on her head for? And she groaned! Why, she MUST be sick!"

Mrs. Snow, having found the clean napkin, laid it beside her husband's
plate.

"No," she said calmly. "It's one of her sympathetic attacks; that's what
she calls 'em, sympathetic attacks. She has 'em every time Laban
Keeler starts in on one of his periodics. It's nerves, I suppose. Cap'n
Zelotes--your grandfather--says it's everlastin' foolishness. Whatever
'tis, it's a nuisance. And she's so sensible other times, too."

Albert was more puzzled than ever. Why in the world Mrs. Ellis should
tie up her head and groan because the little Keeler person had gone on a
spree was beyond his comprehension.

His grandmother enlightened him a trifle.

"You see," she went on, "she and Laban have been engaged to be married
ever since they were young folks. It's Laban's weakness for liquor
that's kept 'em apart so long. She won't marry him while he drinks and
he keeps swearin' off and then breaking down. He's a good man, too; an
awful good man and capable as all get-out when he's sober. Lately that
is, for the last seven or eight years, beginnin' with the time when that
lecturer on mesmerism and telegraphy--no, telepathy--thought-transfers
and such--was at the town hall--Rachel has been havin' these sympathetic
attacks of hers. She declares that alcohol-takin' is a disease and
that Laban suffers when he's tipsy and that she and he are so bound up
together that she suffers just the same as he does. I must say I