"We're not taking him to Five Oaks. There's no place for him there. But I've got a nurse for him, Aunt Mirandy Moody. She knows how to take care of the sick, and I believe the can manage him." "Oh, anybody can manage him now," Doctor Stout said reassuringly. A tremor of weakness passed over Dorinda. She felt that her knees and elbows were shaking, and there was a meaningless noise in her ears. Was it Jason of whom they were speaking? No, it was not Jason, for it seemed to her that Jason had died long ago, so long ago that she couldn't remember him. She was standing by the wall of the poorhouse, and an obscure pauper, somebody who could be "easily managed," was dying within. She dropped her eyelids to shut out the brown cloud, as thick as the smoke of burning leaves, which rolled up from the meadows. When she opened her eyes again the sunshine on the whitewashed wall dazzled her. If only she had known! If only she could have looked ahead to this moment! Those summer evenings thirty years ago, and this autumn day beside the wall of the poorhouse! The whitewashed cedars, the sunken road, the flat fields, the ridged earth where labourers moved slowly, and over all the glittering dust of life-everlasting. "He ought to drink as much milk as he can," Doctor Stout was saying in his professional voice. "And eggs when he will take them. Every two hours he should have nourishment in some form, and an eggnog with whiskey three or four times a day. You can't expect him to do without whiskey. I've got a bottle for you to take back with you. He may need some on the way if he seems to be losing strength." She nodded. "I learned a little when I was a girl in a doctor's office in New York; but everything has changed since the war. You'll come over to-morrow?" "I'll drop in whenever I am called that way. If he gets much worse, you can telephone me. I feel that he has a professional claim on me." The weakness had gone now. She felt courageous and full of vitality, as if the rich blood had surged up through her veins. With the return of strength, her self-reliance, her calm efficiency, revived. She was facing the present now, not the past, and she faced it imperiously. "You think he is able to be moved?" she asked. "Even if it is a risk,"--he met her gaze candidly,--"wouldn't anything be better than to die in this place?" She acquiesced by a gesture. Then, threading her way between the stunted rosebushes, she spoke in a smothered voice, "Is he ready to go with us?" "He is waiting on the back porch. It's sunny there." "The car is open, you know, but John Abner is putting up the top." "Fresh air won't hurt him. You've plenty of rugs, I suppose, and he'll need pillows." "I've thought of that. You can fix the back seat like a bed. Of course we shall drive very slowly." Glancing up at the sun, she concluded in her capable manner: "It's time we were starting. John Abner and I both have work to do on the farm."