CHAPTER X.
UNDER FIRE.
Emma Lauriston was absent from school three days, and then took her place, looking somewhat pale and languid; but several of the girls were rather impatient to see her.
"Have you heard bad news?" she asked of Kathie. "My cousin said your uncle had returned."
"Yes," in a grave tone, rather unlike the sunshiny Kathie.
"That was quite a romance about your friend Miss Darrell. Do they think Mr. Meredith will—never get well?"
"They are afraid."
The little bell sounded to call them to order, and then began the usual lessons. Kathie's were always perfect, and yet, oddly enough, it seemed to Emma that her whole heart was not in them.
She had fallen into the habit of watching Kathie very narrowly. The "something different from other girls" was still a puzzle to her; and when the doctor had said, a few days ago, "You just missed having a severe attack of diphtheria," it startled Emma a good deal. She knew several who had died of diphtheria; and if she were to die—
Of course she wanted to live. She was young, and full of hope; and there would be the fortune by and by,—one of those odd bequests of which she reaped little benefit now, as it was to go on accumulating until she was twenty-one; but then she would be able to do a great many delightful things with it. That was not all, however. There was something very terrible in the idea of death.