there was no worry about her school for her. She would not lie down,
but sat in the rocking-chair with her needle-work in her lap. When
any one came in, she took it up and sewed. Several of the neighbors
had heard she was ill, and came to inquire. She told them, with a
defiant air, that she was very well, and they looked shocked and
nonplussed. Some of them beckoned her mother out into the entry when
they took leave, and Lois heard them whispering together.

The next day, Sunday, Lois seemed about the same. She said once that
she was going to church, but she did not speak of it again. Mrs.
Field went. She suggested staying at home, but Lois was indignant.

"Stay at home with me, no sicker than I am! I should think you were
crazy, mother," said she.

So Mrs. Field got out her Sunday clothes and went to meeting. As soon
as she had gone, Lois coughed; she had been choking the cough back.
She stood at the window, well back that people might not see her, and
watched her mother pass down the street with her stiff glide. Mrs.
Field's back and shoulders were rigidly steady when she walked; she
might have carried a jar of water on her head without spilling it,
like an Indian woman. Lois, small and slight although she was, walked
like her mother. She held herself with the same resolute stateliness,
when she could hold herself at all. The two women might, as far as
their carriage went, have marched in a battalion with propriety.

Lois felt a certain relief when her mother had gone. Even when Mrs.
Field made no expression of anxiety, there was a covert distress
about her which seemed to enervate the atmosphere, and hinder the
girl in the fight she was making against her own weakness. Lois had a