West Indies, you kindly said I might ask you for any little service
which might be within your power. I shall be greatly obliged if you can
obtain for me, and send to this place, a supply of artists' modeling
wax--sufficient for the product ion of a small image."

CHAPTER XXXIV. IN THE DARK.

A week later, Alban Morris happened to be in Miss Ladd's study, with
a report to make on the subject of his drawing-class. Mrs. Ellmother
interrupted them for a moment. She entered the room to return a book
which Francine had borrowed that morning.

"Has Miss de Sor done with it already?" Miss Ladd asked.

"She won't read it, ma'am. She says the leaves smell of tobacco-smoke."

Miss Ladd turned to Alban, and shook her head with an air of
good-humored reproof. "I know who has been reading that book last!" she
said.

Alban pleaded guilty, by a look. He was the only master in the school
who smoked. As Mrs. Ellmother passed him, on her way out, he noticed the
signs of suffering in her wasted face.

"That woman is surely in a bad state of health," he said. "Has she seen
the doctor?"

"She flatly refuses to consult the doctor," Miss Ladd replied. "If she
was a stranger, I should meet the difficulty by telling Miss de Sor
(whose servant she is) that Mrs. Ellmother must be sent home. But I
cannot act in that peremptory manner toward a person in whom Emily is
interested."

From that moment Mrs. Ellmother became a person in whom Alban was
interested. Later in the day, he met her in one of the lower corridors
of the house, and spoke to her. "I am afraid the air of this place
doesn't agree with you," he said.

Mrs. Ellmother's irritable objection to being told (even indirectly)
that she looked ill, expressed itself roughly in reply. "I daresay you
mean well, sir--but I don't see how it matters to you whether the place
agrees with me or not."

"Wait a minute," Alban answered good-humoredly. "I am not quite a
stranger to you."

"How do you make that out, if you please?"

"I know a young lady who has a sincere regard for you."

"You don't mean Miss Emily?"

"Yes, I do. I respect and admire Miss Emily; and I have tried, in my
poor way, to be of some little service to her."

Mrs. Ellmother's haggard face instantly softened. "Please to forgive me,
sir, for forgetting my manners," she said simply. "I have had my health
since the day I was born--and I don't like to be told, in my old age,
that a new place doesn't agree with