een feelin' very well this spring. I've been considerable
worried about her," she answered, with harsh decision.

"Ah, I am very sorry to hear that. Well, she will soon recuperate if
she stays here. Elliot is considered a very healthy place. We shall
soon have her so hearty and rosy that her old friends won't be able
to recognize her." He bowed with a smiling flourish to Lois.

Her lips trembled with a half-smile in response, but she looked more
frightened than ever.

"Now, Mrs. Maxwell," said the lawyer, "you and your niece must
positively remain and dine with us to-day, can't you?"

"I'm afraid it will put your sister out."

"Oh, no, indeed." The lawyer, however, had a slightly nonplussed
expression. "She will be delighted. I will run over to the house,
then, and tell her that you will stay, shall I not?"

"I hate to make her extra work," said Mrs. Field. That was her rural
form of acceptance.

"You will not, I assure you. Don't distress yourself about that, Mrs.
Maxwell."

Nevertheless, he was quite ill at ease as he traversed the yard. In
his life with his sister there were exigencies during which he was
obliged to descend from his platform of superiority. He foresaw the
approach of one now.

Dinner was already served when he entered the dining-room, and his
sister was setting the chairs around the table. They kept no servant.

"They are going to stay to dinner, I expect," he remarked, in a
appealingly confidential tone.

His sister faced him with a jerk. She was very red from bending over
the kitchen fire. "Who's goin' to stay? What do you mean, Daniel?"

"Why, Mrs. Maxwell and her niece."

"Her niece? I didn't know she had any niece. How did she get here?"

"She came this noon; followed along after her aunt, I suppose. I
don't think she knew she was coming. She acted kind of surprised, I
thought."

"You don't mean they're comin' in here to dinner?"

"I couldn't very well help asking them, you know." His tone was soft
and conciliatory, and he kept a nervous eye upon his sister's face.

"Couldn't help askin' 'em! I ruther guess I could 'a' helped askin'
'em!"

"Jane, I hadn't any idea they'd stay."

"Well, you've gone an' done it, that's all I've got to say. Here they
didn't come last night, when I got all ready for 'em, an' now they're
comin', an' everything we've got is a picked-up dinner; there ain't
enough of anything to go round. Flora!"

Her daughter Flora came in from the kitchen,