did. But the swift thought of Aunt Charity alone at home, sick, and

needing her, decided her to postpone the discussion she foresaw any opening of the subject would be sure to entail.

She hesitated, bit her lip, and began, half-heartedly, “Milly—I——”

Milly had bent over to pick up her dropped book, and she did not trouble to look up at the sound of her name.

“Well?” she asked, coolly, sitting up at last, a trifle flushed, and apparently more absorbed in straightening some crumpled page corners than in anything Erica might choose to say.

“Oh—nothing,” Erica returned in a flat tone, and sprang to her feet in relief as her aunt entered the room, followed by Lis. She was suddenly and vehemently surer than ever that never had she met so disagreeable and utterly aggravating a girl as this dark, silent, aloof young person with whom she was expected to live on terms of close intimacy for perhaps years and _years_ to come.

And then, swiftly, she remembered Aunt Charity again, and catching at Mrs. Folger’s arm with cold, frightened fingers, hurried her out of the house and across the lawn next door. The petty annoyance of Milly’s unfriendliness was completely swallowed up for the time being in the larger worry.