here were others, somewhat remote from him, at
table, who were ending when he was beginning, and when they had joked
themselves out of the room and away from Mrs. Stager's ministrations
he was left alone to her. He had instantly appreciated a quality of
motherliness in her attitude towards him, and now he was sensible of a
kindly intimacy to which he rather helplessly addressed himself.

"Well, Mrs. Stager, did you see a ghost on your way to bed?"

"I don't know as I really expected to," she said. "Won't you have a few
more of the buckwheats?"

"Do you think I'd better? I believe I won't. They're very tempting. Miss
Shirley makes a very good ghost," he suggested.

Mrs. Stager would not at first commit herself further than to say in
bringing him the butter, "She's just up from a long fit of sickness."
She impulsively added, "She ain't hardly strong enough to be doing what
she is, I tell her."

"I understood she had been ill," Verrian said. "We drove over from the
station together, the other day."

"Yes," Mrs. Stager admitted. "Kind of a nervous breakdown, I believe.
But she's got an awful spirit. Mrs. Westangle don't want her to do all
she is doing."

Verrian looked at her in surprise. He had not expected that of the
India-rubber nature he had attributed to Mrs. Westangle. In view of Mrs.
Stager's privity to the unimagined kindliness of his hostess, he relaxed
himself in a further interest in Miss Shirley, as if it would now be
safe. "She's done splendidly, so far," he said, meaning the girl. "I'm
glad Mrs. Westangle appreciates her work."

"I guess," Mrs. Stager said, "that if it hadn't been for you at the
snow-fight--She got back from getting ready for it, that morning, almost
down sick, she was afraid so it was going to fail."

"I didn't do anything," Verrian said, putting the praise from him.

Mrs. Stager lowered her voice in an octave of deeper confidentiability.
"You got the note? I put it under, and I didn't know."

"Oh yes, I got it," Verrian said, sensible of a relief, which he would
not assign to any definite reason, in knowing that Miss Shirley had not
herself put it under his door. But he now had to take up another burden
in the question whether Miss Shirley were of an origin so much above
that of her confidant that she could have a patrician fearlessness in
making use of her, or were so near Mrs. Stager's level of life that she
would naturally turn to her for counsel and help. Miss Shirley had th