little common belongings of her daily life were turned into so
many stationary landmarks to prove her own retrogression and fill her
with horror.

To-day, when people inquired for Lois, her mother no longer gave her
customary replies. She said openly that her daughter was real
miserable, and she was worried about her.

"I guess she's beginning to realize it," the women whispered to each
other with a kind of pitying triumph. For there is a certain
aggravation in our friends' not owning to even those facts which we
deplore for them. It is provoking to have an object of pity balk.
Mrs. Field's assumption that her daughter was not ill had half
incensed her sympathizing neighbors; even Amanda had marvelled
indignantly at it. But now the sudden change in her friend caused her
to marvel still more. She felt a vague fear every time she thought of
her. After Lois had gone to bed that Sunday night, her mother came
into Amanda's room, and the two women sat together in the dusk. It
was so warm that Amanda had set all the windows open, and the room
was full of the hollow gurgling of the frogs--there was some low
meadow-land behind the house.

"I want to know what you think of Lois?" said Mrs. Field, suddenly;
her voice was high and harsh.

"Why, I don't know, hardly, Mis' Field."

"Well, I know. She's runnin' down. She won't ever be any better,
unless I can do something. She's dyin' for the want of a little
money, so she can stop work an' go away to some healthier place an'
rest. She is; the Lord knows she is." Mrs. Field's voice was solemn,
almost oratorical.

Amanda sat still; her long face looked pallid and quite unmoved in
the low light; she was thinking what she could say.

But Mrs. Field went on; she was herself so excited to speech and
action, the outward tendency of her own nature was so strong, that
she failed to notice the course of another's. "She is," she repeated,
argumentatively, as if Amanda had spoken, or she was acute enough to
hear the voice behind silence; "there ain't any use talkin'."

There was a pause, a soft wind came into the room, the noise of the
frogs grew louder, a whippoorwill called; it seemed as if the wide
night were flowing in at the windows.

"What I want to know is," said Mrs. Field, "if you will take Lois in
here to meals, an' look after her a week or two. Be you willin' to?"

"You ain't goin' away, Mis' Field?" There was a slow and contained
surprise in Amanda's tone.

"Yes, I b