"How you talk."

Mrs. Dent spoke in a faintly injured voice, but there was a light
in her eyes.

"I talk the way it is. Well, I'm going to-morrow morning, and I
want you, just as soon as Agnes Dent comes home, to send her out to
me. Don't you wait for anything. You pack what clothes she's got,
and don't wait even to mend them, and you buy her ticket. I'll
leave the money, and you send her along. She don't have to change
cars. You start her off, when she gets home, on the next train!"

"Very well," replied the other woman. She had an expression of
covert amusement.

"Mind you do it."

"Very well, Rebecca."

Rebecca started on her journey the next morning. When she arrived,
two days later, she found her cousin in perfect health. She found,
moreover, that the friend had not written the postscript in the
cousin's letter. Rebecca would have returned to Ford Village the
next morning, but the fatigue and nervous strain had been too much
for her. She was not able to move from her bed. She had a species
of low fever induced by anxiety and fatigue. But she could write,
and she did, to the Slocums, and she received no answer. She also
wrote to Mrs. Dent; she even sent numerous telegrams, with no
response. Finally she wrote to the postmaster, and an answer
arrived by the first possible mail. The letter was short, curt,