sed.

Amanda went home, and Mrs. Field went back to the kitchen to put away
the dinner dishes. She had eaten nothing herself, and now she poured
some of the broth into a cup, and drank it down with great gulps
without tasting it. It was simply filling of a necessity the lamp of
life with oil.

After her housework was done, she sat down in the kitchen with her
knitting. There was no sound from the other room.

The latter part of the afternoon Amanda came past the window and
entered the back door. She carried a glass of foaming beer. Amanda
was famous through the neighborhood for this beer, which she
concocted from roots and herbs after an ancient recipe. It was
pleasantly flavored with aromatic roots, and instinct with agreeable
bitterness, being an innocently tonic old-maiden brew.

"I thought mebbe she'd like a glass of my beer," whispered Amanda. "I
came round the house so's not to disturb her. How is she?"

"I guess she's asleep. I ain't heard a sound."

Amanda set the glass on the table. "Don't you think you'd ought to
have a doctor, Mis' Field?" said she.

It seemed impossible that Lois could have heard, but her voice came
shrilly from the other room: "No, I ain't going to have a doctor;
there's no need of it. I sha'n't like it if you get one, mother."

"No, you sha'n't have one, dear child," her mother called back. "She
was always jest so about havin' a doctor," she whispered to Amanda.

"I'll take in the beer if she's awake," said Amanda.

Lois looked up when she entered. "I don't want a doctor," said she,
pitifully, rolling her blue eyes.

"Of course you sha'n't have a doctor if you don't want one," returned
Amanda, soothingly. "I thought mebbe you'd like a glass of my beer."

Lois drank the beer eagerly, then she sank back and closed her eyes.
"I'm going to get up in a minute, and sew on my dress," she murmured.

But she did not stir until her mother helped her to bed early in the
evening.

The next day she seemed a little better. Luckily it was Saturday, so
there was no worry about her school for her. She would not lie down,
but sat in the rocking-chair with her needle-work in her lap. When
any one came in, she took it up and sewed. Several of the neighbors
had heard she was ill, and came to inquire. She told them, with a
defiant air, that she was very well, and they looked shocked and
nonplussed. Some of them beckoned her mother out into the entry when
they took leave, and Lois heard them whi