cannot--act another day."

"Oh, yes you can," replied Kate soothingly. "And, besides, it'll all
come right if you just hang on. I knew something was strange--I've
suspicioned it ever sence you come. Wasn't it me as went around and took
all your baby pictures out o' the old albums and others with big round
dimples out o' velvet photograph-frames, and himself lookin' everywhere
for 'em and me never lettin' on? I says to myself you wasn't really
yourself, but like enough a cousin or foster-sister, and just as good and
perhaps more satisfactory. Come, we'll just race around home and go in
by the back-door so as to be there for supper as if nothin'd happened."

Just before they reached the kitchen door, Elsie spoke.

"Oh, Katy, couldn't I stay in my room until she--Mrs. Moss comes? My
head does ache--terribly."

"Well, child, you go up there now, anyhow, and Katy'll see what her big
head can do."

The quick-witted woman got out of her suit and into her slipshod shoes
and went straight to Mrs. Middleton.

"That Mis' Moss flew right off, ma'am--forgot somethin' she had to do in
New York, it seems, and off she goes. Them Westerners, you know, is
reg'lar globe-trotters. She's comin' back to accept our hospitality on
Sunday, it seems, but here I am with a company supper fit for the Empress
of Injy and plans for meals all day to-morrow and a bed made up. I
suppose you wouldn't want to ask Miss Dunham to make her visit now and
help eat things up? The pineys are all in blossom, too."

Miss Dunham was an elderly, crippled parishioner who lived a little out
of town and came each year to the parsonage for a day or two. Mrs.
Middleton threw her arms about Kate.

"Oh, Katy, what a dear you are to think of it! It's just the thing. Day
after to-morrow is children's Sunday and she'll enjoy that, and I'm going
to church myself and surprise Mr. Middleton. That is why Elsie went into
Boston to-day--to get me some gloves and a dove-colored sunshade. Do you
think you can get her here to-night, Katy?"

"I'll telephone to himself at the library," said patient Kate, who hated
the telephone. "And we'll wait supper."

The plan worked perfectly. The minister fetched Miss Dunham in a
motor-car in time for a late tea. Only Kate and Elsie knew what her
visit meant to the latter, and Kate didn't understand fully. Mrs. Moss
arrived on Sunday shortly after the guest had gone.

But at best Elsie had suffered keenly, and when M