you get home nights. I saw her with one of 'em on."

"Cora, do you know what happened to a little girl oncet who asked too
many questions?"

"No."

"Well, I won't tell you now. It might spoil your appetite for dinner.
But you can take it from me, the end she met with would surprise you."

Shortly after, Claire's door quietly opened, and Cora, with a lighted
taper in her hand, tiptoed cautiously in, like a young torch-bearing
_avant-courrière,_ behind whom Mrs. Slawson, laden with a wonderful
tray, advanced processionally.

"Light the changelier, an' then turn it low," Martha whispered. "An'
then you, yourself, light out, so's the pretty lady can eat in comfort."

The pretty lady, sitting up among her pillows, awake and alert, almost
brought disaster upon the taper, and the tray, by exclaiming brightly,
"Good-evening! I'm wide awake for good! You needn't tiptoe or hush any
more. O, I feel like new! All rested and well and--_ready_ again. And I
owe it, every bit, to you! You've been so _good_ to me!"

It was hard on Cora to have to obey her mother's injunction to "clear
out," just when the pretty lady was beginning to demonstrate her right
to the title. But Martha's word in her little household was not to be
disputed with impunity, and Cora slipped away reluctantly, carrying with
her a dazzling vision of soft, dark hair, starry blue-gray eyes,
wonderful changing expressions, and, in and over all, a smile that was