heard her father's voice, and the doctor's in response, but she still
could not distinguish a word. Presently she heard the front door open
and close softly. Then her father hurried down the steps, and got
into the doctor's buggy and drove away. It was dark, but she could
not mistake her father. She knew that he had gone for another doctor,
probably Dr. Williams, who lived in the next town, and was considered
very skilful. The other doctor was remaining with her mother. She did
not dare leave her room again. She sat there watching an hour, and a
pale radiance began to appear in the east, which her room faced. It
was like dawn in another world, everything had so changed to her. The
thought came to her that she might go down-stairs and make some
coffee, if she only knew how. Her father might like some when he
returned. But she did not know how, and even if she had she dared not
leave her room again.

The pale light in the east increased, suddenly rosy streamers, almost
like northern lights, were flung out across the sky. She could
distinguish things quite clearly. She heard the rattle of wheels, and
thought it was her father returning with Dr. Williams, but instead it
was the milkman in his yellow cart. He carried a bottle of milk
around to the south door. There was something horribly ghastly in
that every-day occurrence to the watching child. She realized the
interminable moving on of things in spite of all individual
sufferings, as she would have realized the revolution of a wheel of
torture. She felt that it was simply hideous that the milk should be
left at the door that morning, just as if everything was as it had
been. When the milkman jumped into his wagon, whistling, it seemed to
her as if he were doing an awful thing. The milk-wagon stopped at the
opposite house, then moved on out of sight down the street. She
wished to herself that the milkman's horse might run away while he