"Yes!" she said, with her little brisk snap. "I see just as much of Kitty as she likes. I don't poke about in her house; I wouldn't have anybody poking about in mine. When she wants me, I am here, delighted to see her. When she doesn't--well, I am here just the same, and not downstairs under her feet. Blessings of the Bedridden, my dear. Appreciated by few, but tangible none the less." My visit in beloved Cyrus had ended long before this, but Kitty had dropped a word now and then in her letters; and Nelly Chanter wrote me that they were all worried about her. "She is as gay and cheery as ever, but she doesn't _look right_. I am perfectly sure she has lost _pounds_, though of course nothing would persuade her to be weighed. You see, that cat Cissy Sharpe got hold of a western paper somehow in Tinkham, with the account of the marriage of _Thomas Leigh_ to a rich widow, millions, marble palaces, that kind of thing. She didn't _show_ Kitty the paper, just told her about it in the street, and she said Kitty went white as milk and didn't say a word, just walked away, looking as if she were blind. Then she--Cissy--came to Lina and me, open-mouthed, as you can imagine: I tell you we _gave_ it to her! And Lina, in her quiet way, cross-examined her and got out of her that it was _Leigh_ and not _Lee_. Did you _ever_, Mary? Well, the next time I saw Kitty, I managed to lead up to it--talking about Bobby and Lissy (yes, we are all _very_ fond of Lissy, and it is _all right_, though, of course, it was a blow _at first_, after all our hopes; but Bobby is so happy, of course we are too!) well, and so I spoke of the report, about Tom and the different spelling, said I didn't believe it was our Tom at all, and so forth and so on. She just listened, that little quiet way she has when she doesn't agree with you,--you know--her head a little on one side, looking down: and said yes, very likely. That was all I could get out of her; but, Mary, I think she has made up her mind that he _isn't coming back_; and I think her heart is breaking, and all ours are breaking for her." This was partly true. Kitty did at this time make up her mind that Tom was not likely to come into her life again; she has told me that since, and that she was very unhappy for a while; but as to breaking her heart--Nelly always was sentimental. Kitty is not. She just looked the thing straight in the face--that reminds me of something she said, that puts it all in a nutshell. It was on my first visit after her marriage, and we were talking over our sewing, sitting on the old leather sofa. She spoke of the Woful Waiting. "It wasn't really so bad!" she said. "It was--do you remember that verse in the 'Ancient Mariner' that always frightened me so? "'Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head, Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.'