They stood looking at the young girl, stretched out her slender
length, her white delicate profile showing against the black arm of
the sofa.

Her mother caught her breath. "She's got to be waked up; she's got to
have some nourishment, anyhow," said she. "Come, Lois, wake up, and
have your dinner."

Lois opened her eyes. All the animation and defiance were gone from
her face. She was so exhausted that she made no resistance to
anything. She let them raise her, prop her up with a pillow, and
nearly feed her with the dinner. Then she lay back, and her eyes
closed.

Amanda went home, and Mrs. Field went back to the kitchen to put away
the dinner dishes. She had eaten nothing herself, and now she poured
some of the broth into a cup, and drank it down with great gulps
without tasting it. It was simply filling of a necessity the lamp of
life with oil.

After her housework was done, she sat down in the kitchen with her
knitting. There was no sound from the other room.

The latter part of the afternoon Amanda came past the window and
entered the back door. She carried a glass of foaming beer. Amanda
was famous through the neighborhood for this beer, which she
concocted from roots and herbs after an ancient recipe. It was
pleasantly flavored with aromatic roots, and instinct with agreeable
bitterness, being an innocently tonic old-maiden brew.