o be in your family. Does Lois cough?"

"None to speak of."

"Well, there's more kinds of consumption than one."

Mrs. Babcock made quite a long call. She shook Mrs. Field's hand
warmly at parting. "I want to know, does Lois like honey?" said she.

"Yes, she's real fond of it."

"Well, I'm goin' to send her over a dish of it. Ours was uncommon
nice this year. It's real good for a cough."

On her way home Mrs. Babcock met Lois Field coming from school
attended by a little flock of children. Mrs. Babcock stopped, and
looked sharply at her small, delicately pretty face, with its pointed
chin and deep-set blue eyes.

"How are you feelin' to-night, Lois?" she inquired, in a tone of
forcible commiseration.

"I'm pretty well, thank you," said Lois.

"Seems to me you're lookin' pretty slim. You'd ought to take a little
vacation." Mrs. Babcock surveyed her with a kind of pugnacious pity.

Lois stood quite erect in the midst of the children. "I don't think I
need any vacation," said she, smiling constrainedly. She pushed
gently past Mrs. Babcock, with the children at her heels.

"You'd better take a little one," Mrs. Babcock called after her.

Lois kept on as if she did not hear. Her face was flushed, and her
head seemed full of beating pulses.

One of the children, a thin little girl in a blue dress, turned
around and grimaced at Mrs. Babcock; another pulled Lois' dress.
"Teacher, Jenny Whitcomb is makin' faces at Mis' Babcock," she
drawled.

"Jenny!" said Lois sharply; and the little girl turned her face with
a scared nervous giggle. "You mustn't ever do such a thing as that
again," said Lois. She reached down and took the child's little
restive hand and led her along.

Lois had not much farther to go. The children all clamored, "Good-by,
teacher!" when she turned in at her own gate.

She went in through the sitting-room to the kitchen, and settled down
into a chair with her hat on.

"Well, so you've got home," said her mother; she was moving about
preparing supper. She smiled anxiously at Lois as she spoke.

Lois smiled faintly, but her forehead was frowning. "Has that Mrs.
Babcock been here?" she asked.

"Yes. Did you meet her?"

"Yes, I did; and I'd like to know what she meant telling me I'd ought
to take a vacation, and I looked bad. I wish people would let me
alone tellin' me how I look."

"She meant well, I guess," said her mother, soothingly. "She said she
was goin' to send you over a dish of