I
Mrs. Kennedy made no preparation for going to work that day. She suffered from a strange, an inexplicable malady. She didn’t want to go to bed. She sat upright in a rocking-chair, still in her night-dress, staring at the kitchen wall before her with a faint little frown.
Angelica washed and dressed herself neatly, and got ready some breakfast—not very quickly, for she wasn’t accustomed to cooking, but with the care and deftness that were so natural to her. It was, when done, a daintier and better meal than her mother had ever served.
"Now, mommer!" she said. "Come on! Sit down!"
"I can’t eat, Angelica."
"You can drink some coffee, anyway."
And she took her mother by the hand and led her to the table—a poor, frail, barefooted little thing, with her gray hair hanging about her haggard face.
"Sit down," said Angelica again. "Now, then!"
Her mother drank a cup of coffee greedily, and gave her familiar little sigh.
"That was nice!" she said.