that the servants and tradespeople came for
orders; it was she who kept her mother's room quiet, and nursed Nora,
and provided necessary occupation for the awed and bewildered children.

"You don't seem to feel it a bit, Janetta," Mrs. Colwyn said to her on
the day before the funeral. "And I'm sure you were always your father's
favorite. He never cared half so much for any of the children as he did
for you, and now you can't even give him a tributary tear."

Mrs. Colwyn was fond of stilted expressions, and the thought of "a
tributary tear" seemed so incongruous to Janetta when compared with her
own deep grief, that--much to Mrs. Colwyn's horror--she burst into an
agitated little laugh, as nervous people sometimes do on the most solemn
occasions.

"To laugh when your father is lying dead in the house!" ejaculated Mrs.
Colwyn, with awful emphasis. "And you that he thought so loving and
dutiful----!"

Then poor Janetta collapsed. She was worn out with watching and working,
and from nervous laughter she passed to tears so heart-broken and so
exhausting that Mrs. Colwyn never again dared to accuse her openly of
insensibility. And perhaps it was a good thing for Janetta that she did
break down in this way. The doctor who had attended her father was
growing very uneasy about her. He had not been deceived by her apparent
calmness. Her white face and dark-ringed eyes had told him all that
Janetta could not say. "A good thing too!" he muttered when, on a
subsequent call, Tiny told him, with rather a look of consternation,
that her sister "had been crying." "A good thing too! If she had not
cried she would have had a nervous fever before long, and then what
would become of you all?"

During these dark days Janetta was inexpressibly touched by the marks of
sympathy that reached her from all sides. Country people trudged long
distances into town that they might gaze once more on the worn face of
the man who had often assuaged not only physical but mental pain, and
had been as ready to help and comfort as to prescribe. Townsfolk sent
flowers for the dead and dainties for the living; but better than all
their gifts was the regret that they expressed for the death of a man
whom everyone liked and respected. Mr. Colwyn's practice, though never
very lucrative, had been an exceedingly large one; and only when he had
passed away did his townsfolk seem to appreciate him at his true worth.

In the sad absorption of mind which followed