"He has!" said the professor testily. "An' he's sick, an' he's got no home." "And you feel yourself called on to take care of him?" "Who else gwine do it? Ise gwine tek him home!" "Out there!" exclaimed Frances, in dismay, and then she asked practically. "What's the matter with him?" "De Lawd only knows! He's jes' all crippled up, an' his-- Lawd! Lawd!" The old woman broke into loud sobbing. "Now, Susan!" comforted Frances, "don't worry; of course you want to go, and you shall." "I done sont word to Roxie to come hyar an' cook fur you." "I'm glad of that!" said the professor. He had little sympathy with the prodigal who only came back to be a care. "I'll carry you both out to-morrow," declared Frances, "but don't you think you ought to go and warm the place up and get everything comfortable?" "He ain't so bad as he was," said Susan meekly, "he been in de horsepittle a month, he said." "And now they have discharged him, he's come down here on you!" "Marse Robert, he said--" She stopped, knowing the flimsiness of Bill's excuses, "He's de onliest chile Ise got," she added sullenly. "All right! all right." The professor took off his hat and coat and hung them up carefully. "I specs yuh thinks ernough o' yours!" blazed the old woman. "There, father!" Frances laughed as she slipped her hand through his arm, "you haven't a word to say!" The professor was cornered. "That's so!" he acknowledged, as he looked proudly at Frances' bright cheeks and eyes--not so careless as he had seen their glances, but with a sweeter thoughtfulness looking out of their dark, gray depths. "Well, Susan, you'll come back some day, I suppose?" "Soon as he gits well!" "Then, if there's anything you need--" Frances looked back over her shoulder and laughed. She had already begun to say, "Susan, you must take sheets and blankets--" "I got plenty dyar." "But they must be damp and musty." "Bill says 'twas de rhumatiz," put in his mother. "And take what you need right away out of the pantry." "Miss Frances, if yuh'll jes' go into town an' buy me some things, Ise got plenty o' money, Marse Robert so good to me, an' he pays me my wages steady; Ise jis' been savin' 'em up. Here's ten dollars now." She felt in the folds of her turban and brought out the bill. Frances' hands were full for many days; she had to take the old woman and Bill out to the cabin, to help straighten it, and air it, and stock it with provisions, to go out day by day at first, and then whenever she could; and to straighten out household affairs with Roxie at the helm. "How dat Roxie doing?" asked Susan anxiously on one of Frances' visits. Frances hesitated. "Fairly well!" she answered doubtfully. "H'm! Ise glad I taught yuh to cook." "So am I!" declared Frances devoutly, remembering some of her late experiences. "Don't yuh let her gib Marse Robert sech po' vittels he'll git sick!"