"
bed and sending him to sleep by holding his hands and telling him
children's stories. She must have fallen asleep after he did, and slid
down on his shoulder. A wonder it hadn't disturbed him! She stole
another look at him, as he lay sleeping still, heavily and quietly.
After all, she was married to him, and she had a perfect right to recite
him to sleep if she wanted to. She unrolled herself cautiously, and slid
out like a shadow.

She almost fell over poor Wallis, sleeping too in his clothes outside
the door, on Allan's day couch. He came quickly to his feet, as if he
were used to sudden waking.

"Don't disturb Mr. Harrington," said Phyllis as staidly as if she had
been giving men-servants orders in her slipper-feet all her life. "He
seems to be sleeping quietly."

"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Harrington, but you haven't been giving him
anything, have you?" asked Wallis. "He hasn't slept without a break for
two hours to my knowledge since I've been here, not without medicine."

"Not a thing," said Phyllis, smiling with satisfaction. "He must have
been sleeping nearly three hours now! I read him to sleep, or what
amounted to it. I got his nerves quiet, I think. Please kill anybody
that tries to wake him, Wallis."

"Very good, ma'am," said Wallis gravely. "And yourself, ma'am?"

"I'm going to get some sleep, too," she said. "Call me if there's
anything--useful."

She meant "necessary," but she wanted so much more sleep she never knew
the difference. When she got into her room she found that there also she
was not alone: the wistful wolfhound was curled plaintively across her
bed, which he overlapped. From his nose he seemed to have been dipping
largely into the cup of chocolate somebody had brought to her, and which
she had forgotten to drink when she found it, on her first retiring.

"You aren't a _bit_ high-minded," said Phyllis indignantly. She was too
sleepy to do more than shove him over to the back of the bed. "All--the
beds here are so--_full_," she complained sleepily; and crawled inside,
and never woke again till nearly afternoon.

There was all the grave business to be done, in the days that followed,
of taking Mrs. Harrington to a quiet place beside her husband, and
drawing together again the strings of the disorganized household.
Phyllis found herself whispering over and over again:

"The sweeping up the heart
And putting love away
We shall not need to use again.
Until the Jud