e the doctor, and I can't leave you alone, I am going
to ask Mrs. Lane to come, I can't help it--I can't do anything else.
I'll slip on my shoes and stockings, I won't be more than a minute."

Granny Barnes stopped moaning, and raised herself on her elbow.
"You'll do no such thing," she gasped.

"But granny, I must--you must have help, and you must have somebody to go
for the doctor, and--and, oh, granny, I'm afraid to be here alone,
I don't know what to do, and you're looking so bad."

"Am I?" nervously. "Well--if I've got to die alone and helpless, I will,
but I won't ask Mrs. Lane to come to me. Do you think I'd--ask a favour
of her, after all her unneighbourliness--not speaking to me for weeks and
weeks----"

Mona burst into tears, confession had to come. "Granny," she said,
dropping on her knees beside the bed. "I--I've got to tell you
something--Mrs. Lane was right----"

"What!" Granny's face grew whiter, but she said no more. If she had done
so, if she had but spoken kindly and helped her ever so little, it would
have made things much easier for poor Mona.

"I--I--it was me that pulled the faggots down that night, and not Mrs.
Lane's cats, and she won't look, or speak to me because I didn't tell,
and I let her cats bear the blame. I--I didn't mean to do any harm, I was
in such a hurry to light up the fire, and the old things all rolled down,
and I forgot to go out and pick them up again. I didn't think you'd be
going out there that night, but you went out, and--and fell over them.
If you hadn't gone out it would have been all right, I'd have seen them in
the morning and have picked them up."

But Granny Barnes was not prepared to listen to excuses, she was very,
very angry. "And fine and foolish you've made me look all this time,
Mona Carne, and risked my life too. For bad as I was a little while back,
I wouldn't bring myself to ask Mrs. Lane to come to me, nor Cap'en Lane to
go and fetch the doctor, and--and if I'd died, well, you know who would
have been to blame!"

Granny's cheeks were crimson now, and she was panting with exhaustion.
"Now what you've got to do is--to go in--and tell her the truth yourself."

"I'm going," said Mona, the tears streaming down her face. But as she
hurried to the door, the sight of her, looking so childlike and forlorn in
her nightgown, with her tumbled hair and tear-stained face, touched her
grandmother's heart, and softened her anger.

"Mona," she cried, "co