The dinner-bell rang, creating a blessed diversion. Miss Blair,
rendered absent-minded by her grief, went to the table still in her
bonnet and veil; and this dramatic entrance gave rise to such morbid
though unexpressed curiosity that every one forbore, for a time, to
wonder why Miss Dyer did not appear. Later, however, when a tray was
prepared and sent up to her (according to the programme of her bad
days), the general commotion reached an almost unruly point, stimulated
as it was by the matron's son, who found an opportunity to whisper one
garrulous old lady that Miss Dyer had received bodily injury at the
hands of her roommate, and that Mrs. Blair had put on her bonnet to be
ready for the sheriff when he should arrive. This report, judiciously
started, ran like prairie fire; and the house was all the afternoon in
a pleasant state of excitement. Possibly the matron will never know why
so many of the old ladies promenaded the corridors from dinnertime
until long after early candlelight, while a few kept faithful yet
agitated watch from the windows. For interest was divided; some
preferred to see the sheriff's advent, and others found zest in the
possibility of counting the groans of the prostrate victim.

When Mrs. Blair returned to the stage of action, she was much refreshed
by her abundant meal and the strong tea which three times daily
heartened her for battle. She laid aside her bonnet, and carefully
folded the veil. Then she looked about her, and, persistently ignoring
all the empty chairs, fixed an annihilating gaze on one where the
dinner-tray still remained.

"I s'pose there's no need o' my settin' down," she remarked, bitingly.
"It's all in the day's work. Some folks are waited on; some ain't. Some
have their victuals brought to 'em an' pushed under their noses, an'