needn't come in. Good mornin'."

Having delivered herself of this ultimatum at a single breath, Ellen
turned her head and closed her eyes.

The doctor looked at her in astonishment but did not move.

"Clip right along home," reiterated the sick woman without looking at the
physician. "My niece'll pay you as you go out. I reckon you won't charge
more'n half price, since you ain't done nothin'."

"I usually have----"

"Mebbe. But this call ain't like your usual ones, is it?"

"No," responded the doctor with dignity, "I can't say that it is."

"Then you can't expect to get so much for it," piped Ellen triumphantly.
"My niece will settle with you. Give him a dollar, Lucy--not a cent more.
He'll have fun enough gossipin' about me to make up the rest of the fee."

Doctor Marsh, his face a study in outraged decorum, stalked indignantly
from the room. Ellen, peeping from beneath her lids, watched him with
satisfaction.

"Has he gone?" she demanded, when Lucy returned.

"Yes."

"Thank the Lord. The fool doesn't know anything, anyway. Now you go back
downstairs an' finish up your work. There ain't no call for you to be
idlin' the day out, even if I am."

"I don't like to leave you alone."

"Pooh, pooh! I can't no more'n die, an' if I was to start doin' that you
couldn't stop me."

Lucy moved toward the door; then turning she remarked gently:

"I'm so sorry, Aunt Ellen."

"Eh?"

"I'm sorry you're ill."

"Are you?" questioned the old woman, searching the girl's face with her
small, flinty eyes. "Mebbe you are. You generally tell the truth. I guess
if you do feel so, you're the only one; an' I don't quite see how even you
can be."

"I am."

Her aunt fingered the sheet nervously.

"You're a good girl, Lucy," she presently observed in a weary tone. "You
won't lose nothin' by it, neither."

Embarrassed, her niece started from the room.

"Come back here a minute," muttered the woman drowsily. "I want to speak
to you."

Lucy recrossed the threshold and bent over Ellen, who had sunk back on the
pillows and was beckoning to her with a feeble, exhausted hand.

"You'll stay by me, won't you?" she pleaded in a whisper, for the first
time displaying a consciousness of her helpless, dependent condition.
"Promise you won't desert me. I'm leavin' you the place an' ten thousand
dollars."

CHAPTER XIII

MELVINY ARRIVES

When Lucy descended to the kitchen she was surprised to be confronted by
Jane Howe