ist, and a murderer with them, as
chaperons, I suppose. Oh, I ought to be going!"

"To the slums?" asked Nannie.

"No, no. I ought to get out of here. DeLancy is insane by this time, I
know! I _must_ run!"

"Hilda, you sit still and cool off! You've just been in a stew ever
since you came."

"I'm in one all the time. Do you remember what some of you girls said
of me at that first meeting of the club--I'd be kept in a continual
stew? Never were truer words spoken. Oh!" and she groaned loudly.

"Why don't you get done--with it?" asked Nannie.

"I can't," said Hilda coolly. "I'm in for it now and must go on to the
bitter end. It's too late to chew the cud of reflection."

"Don't count on the end," laughed Nannie, looking at her friend's
rotund figure. "There's no end to you, Hilda. You're an all-round
woman."

"Indeed I am! If you could only see the number of offices I fill. I'm
nurse, doctor, valet, messenger, and on cross days general vent for
the humors."

"Is he really ill?"

"Oh, I don't know. He has dyspepsia. I guess he don't feel any too
well, and nothing pleases him. He took a notion that a sea voyage
would cure him, and it didn't. He snarled and snapped all the way, and
oh, I was so sick--ugh! and I had to drag myself around after him.
Then next he tried the German baths. He's tried everything, and
now--oh, now," she continued with a groan, putting her handkerchief to
her face, "he says that society is injurious to him. And what do you
suppose he has done?" she asked, raising her voice and peering from
above the handkerchief which she had pressed to her face. "He's rented
a lonely cabin in the Adirondacks for a year--a year! and there I'm to
live! Imagine me, my dear! I shall grow so rusty that when I return to
civilization I shall only be able to hang on the back door and creak
while others are talking. Mercy upon us! there's DeLancy! He'll find
me visiting! I'll never hear the last of this as long as I live! Where
can I go? What can I get under? Oh, there's nothing big enough in all
the world to cover me! Woe is me! I must always remain in the open!"

"Lie down there," said Nannie authoritatively. "I'll cover you."

"You!" screamed Hilda. "You! Oh, you elf! you brownie! you mite--you
widow's mite! What could you cover?"

"Lie down! Be quick! The enemy approaches!" cried Nannie, convulsed
with laughter.

Hilda gave one glance from out the window and then fell flat on the
divan.

"I am lost!"