y Basket."

"What do you know of Charity Baskets?" said Margaret, laughing. "But I'm
afraid I am not very good at working for the poor; the only thing I ever
made--made with my own hands, I mean--was a shirt for that eminent Sioux
chieftain Spotted Tail, and he said it did not fit."

"They don't want shirts, they want their land," said Winthrop. "We
should have made them take care of themselves long ago, but we shouldn't
have stolen their land. I'm not thinking of Lo, however, at present, I
am thinking of that poor little woman down at East Angels. I am afraid
she is very ill. Do you know, I cannot help suspecting that the sudden
change in her prospects has had something to do with her illness; I mean
the unexpected vision of what seems to her prosperity. She has kept up
unflinchingly through years of struggle, and I think she could have kept
up almost indefinitely in the same way, for Garda's sake, if she had had
the same things to encounter; but this sudden wealth (for, absurd as it
is, so it seems to her) has changed everything so, has buried her so
almost over her head in plans, that the excitement has broken her down.
You probably think me very fanciful," he concluded, realizing that he
was speaking almost confidentially.

"Not fanciful at all; I quite agree with you," answered Margaret, her
head still bent over her knitting.

"She has asked for you a number of times, Mrs. Carew tells me," he said,
after a moment or two of silence.

"Has she?" said Margaret, this time raising her eyes. "I should have
gone down to East Angels before this if I had not feared that I should
be only in the way; all their friends have been there, I know; it is a
very united little society."

"Yes, Madam Ruiz and Madam Giron were there yesterday taking care of
her; Mrs. Kirby and Mrs. Carew are there to-day. Everything possible is
being done, of course. Still--I don't know; from something Mrs. Carew
said, I fear the poor woman is suffering mentally as well as physically;
she is constantly asking for Garda, cannot bear her out of her sight."

"If I thought I could be of any service," said Margaret.

"I am sure you could; the greatest," he responded promptly, his voice
betraying relief. "Mrs. Thorne is an odd little woman; but she has a
very genuine liking for you; I think she feels more at home with you,
for some reason or other, than she does with any of these Gracias
friends, long as she has known them. And as for Garda, I am sur