Mrs. Winters was there, and the place was dazzlingly clean. "There!" she exclaimed, with a sigh of satisfaction, "I've polished the stove and scrubbed the floor, an' put up five quarts o' pickled pears, an' to-morrow I'm goin' to house-clean the front part. Arabella always kept things kind of in order, but she was never anything of a manager. If you were thinkin' o' stayin' a little, Elsie, I'd run over an' look after my bread, an' then give Hannah a hand with her sewing. It's a caution how them twins get through their clothes. They ought to be well whipped for it. Now, that soup's just awful nice, Elsie. It was good of your ma to send it, an' it's only slops like that Arabella'll take. No, she ain't a bit better, the doctor says; an' I say it jist looks like as if she was too stubborn to quit bein' sick, now she's started. If yous folks hadn't gone gallivantin' off down the crick that day this would never 'a' happened. Arabella's too old for such foolishness, anyhow. Well, I'll run home. Tell her I'll be back in an hour or so an' shake out the mats."
Elsie went into the spare bedroom, where Miss Arabella lay, propped up on pillows. Her little, wan face brightened at the sight of her visitor.
"Oh, Elsie, is it you? It's good o' you to come." She looked anxiously past her. "Where's Susan?"
"She's gone home, and I'm going to sit with you till she comes back."
Miss Arabella tried not to look relieved. "D'ye think it would hurt me much to have the curtains put back, Elsie? I'd love to see out."
"Of course not. You shall have the window taken right out if you want it." The girl rolled up the green paper blind, pushed back the stiff lace curtains, and opened the window from the top. It was a perfect October day, and Miss Arabella felt the gentle breeze, and saw the sumach at her gate, a patch of vivid scarlet against the deep blue of the sky. At a corner of the window the boughs of an old apple-tree, still green, looked in and nodded in a friendly manner. The invalid looked bright and interested for a few minutes, then sighed and grew wan and listless again.
Elsie pulled her chair up close to the bedside.
"Arabella, dear," she said earnestly, "what is the matter with you?"
"I—I—guess it's jist that cold I caught, hangin' on. Susan says it is."
"Dr. Allen doesn't think so. He says he doesn't know what is making you ill, and Susan doesn't know, and I don't know. But you do, Arabella, and, oh, I wish you'd tell me!"