the fact that that same afternoon, sitting on the floor in the Bride's
room, she had, in her anxiety to be entertaining, repeated Maurice's
remark about the ridgepole. Eleanor, who had had an empty morning,
listening to the distant tapping of hammers, had drooped a weary lip.

"I should hate it. Horrid, dirty work!"

"Oh no! It's nice, clean work," Edith corrected her.

"But _you_ wouldn't like it, of course," she said, with satisfaction;
"you'd be scared! You're scared of everything, Maurice says. You were
scared to death, up on the mountain."

Eleanor was silent.

"He thinks it's lovely for you to be scared; it's funny about Maurice,"
said Edith, thoughtfully; "he doesn't like it when _I'm_ scared--not
that I ever am, now, but I used to be when I was a child."

The color flickered on Eleanor's cheeks: "Edith, I'll rest now," she
said; her voice broke.

Edith looked at her, open-mouthed. "Why, Eleanor!" she said; "what's the
matter? Are you mad at anything? Have you a stomachache? I'll run for
mother!"

"There's nothing the matter. But--but I wish you'd tell Maurice to come
and speak to me."

Edith tore downstairs, and out of the front door: "Maurice! Where are