looking at poor Ann. She sat quite still, as Elmira had said, her
head tipped back, her eyes closed, and her mouth slightly parted. Her
little bony hands lay in her lap, with the fingers limp in utter
nerveless relaxation, but she was not asleep. She opened her eyes
when her children came to the door, but she did not speak nor turn
her head. Presently her eyes closed again.

Jerome pulled Elmira back into the parlor. "You must go ahead and get
the dinner, and make her some gruel, and not ask her a question, and
not bother her about anything," he whispered, sternly. "She's
resting; she'll die if she don't. It's awful for her. It's bad 'nough
for us, but we don't know what 'tis for her."

Elmira assented, with wide, scared, piteous eyes on her brother.

"Go now and get the dinner," said Jerome.

"There's lots left over from yesterday," said Elmira, forlornly.
"Shall we have anything after that's gone?"

"Have enough while I've got two hands," returned Jerome, gruffly.
"Get some potatoes and boil 'em, and have some of that cold meat, and
make mother the gruel."

Elmira obeyed, finding a certain comfort in that. Indeed, she
belonged assuredly to that purely feminine order of things which
gains perhaps its best strength through obedience. Give Elmira a
power over her, and she would never quite fall.

Elmira went about getting dinner, tiptoeing around her mother, who