I went slowly home. I walked all the way, I was glad of the exercise, I wanted to tire my body in order that my mind should not think too acutely. When I got in, it was lunch time. I went into the dining-room without taking off my hat. Jane Mullins was there, as usual she was at the foot of the table, she was busy carving, and she was chatting to Mrs. Armstrong, and Mrs. Armstrong was looking somewhat mysterious, and when she saw me she gave me a kindly nod, but I perceived the curiosity in her eyes and turned my face away. Marion Armstrong was seldom in to lunch, she was at her School of Art doing those drawings by which she hoped to win the hand of Albert Fanning. But what chance had she of Albert Fanning? Mrs. Fanning was present, and she looked very stout and prosperous, and mysterious and happy, and as I sat down, not far away from her, she suddenly stretched her fat hand across the table and grasped mine and said-- "How are you, dear, and how is your mother?" I answered that I hoped mother was better, and Captain and Mrs. Furlong looked at me also with pity. I had never greater difficulty in keeping my composure than I had during that awful meal, but I did eat a cutlet when it was put on my plate, and I did manage to talk to my neighbour, a new boarder who had come up from the country, and did not know her way about anywhere. She was an excitable middle-aged lady of between forty and fifty, and she asked questions which I was able to answer, and helped me more than she knew to get through that terrible meal. At last it was over and I went up to mother's room. To my great astonishment it was empty. Where was mother? Was she better? What could have happened? With a mingling of alarm and anticipation I ran into the drawing-room. She was there in her old accustomed seat by the window. She looked very much as usual. When she saw me she called me over to her. "Are you surprised, West?" she said. "I am greatly surprised," I answered; "are you better, Mummy?" I bent over her, calling her by the old childish, very childish name. She laid her thin hand on mine, her hand was hot, but her face looked, with the colour in her cheeks, and her eyes so feverishly bright, more beautiful than I had ever seen it. I sat down near her. "You don't know how nice Nurse Marion has been," she said. "When she found I really wished to get up, she did not oppose me, and she dressed me so carefully, and I am not the least bit tired. I longed to come into the drawing-room, I seem to have quite got over that attack; you need not be anxious, West." "Very well, I won't be anxious," I answered; "I will sit close to you here and read to you if you will let me." "I should love to hear you, darling. Read Whittier's poem, 'My Psalm.' Some of the lines have been ringing in my head all day, and I always like the sort of cadence in your voice when you read poetry aloud."